Petal

Petals are items used for flower planting in. To get petals, the player must feed nectar to Pikmin in the garden, which will make a flower bloom on their head. Petals from that flower can then be picked and added to the player's inventory. There are multiple types of petals, each planting different types of flowers on the in-game map.

Obtaining petals
Petals can mainly be obtained by feeding Pikmin nectar. Each of the several nectar types corresponds to a petal type. Feeding nectar to a Pikmin will make a flower bloom on its head, and tapping that flower will add petals to the player's petal storage. The exception to this is the basic white type of nectar, which will bloom Pikmin from leaf to bud and then bud to flower. If a Pikmin goes from leaf to flower or flower to flower, tapping the glowing flower will give 1 petal of that type. If a Pikmin goes from bud to flower, tapping the glowing flower will give 2 petals of that type. Each Pikmin can only be fed nectar 6 times before it will be overfed and lose its flower after it has been tapped.

Therefore, depending on the method used, each nectar can be converted into either 1 or 2 petals:
 * Feeding nectar to leaf Pikmin gives 1 petal per each 1 nectar. For basic nectar, this is instead 2 petals per each 2 nectar (one to bud the Pikmin, and another to flower it to get 2 petals), which is the same ratio but requires spending both nectar at a time.
 * Feeding a basic nectar to a leaf Pikmin, and then a different nectar to that bud Pikmin, also results in 2 petals per each 2 nectar. The difference is that the basic nectar used for budding is conceptually "wildcard"ed into the type of the second nectar.
 * Feeding nectar to a flower Pikmin gives 1 petal per each 1 nectar.
 * Feeding nectar to a Pikmin that has naturally budded over time gives 2 petals per each 1 nectar. This is optimal for maximizing petals per nectar, though it can only be done once per Pikmin a day.

Releasing a Pikmin will provide 10 basic petals of its flower's color, or white if it was never bloomed.

Some types of petals can also be bought from the shop.

On very rare occasions after a player fed nectar to a Pikmin, it may continue emitting a glow with an additional blue tint and a small lens flare effect. If a player attempts to collect petals from this Pikmin, it will keep giving unlimited petals of the nectar type it was fed last until the glowing stops. This lasts for approximately 10 seconds.

There is a limit to the number of petals of each type the player can hold, but it can be increased through in-app purchases in the shop. The starting amount is 300, though it used to be 200 before 11.

Gameplay effects
Petals are used in flower planting as a consumable resource. One type of petals can be selected at a time, and when flower planting is turned on, that type of petals will gradually be depleted. They will not be depleted if the app cannot see the player's location, if it cannot connect to the game's servers, or if it is currently in a crashed state. The rate depends on how many Pikmin are in the player's squad, but as the range of flowers planted also depends on this, it's advantageous to have as many Pikmin in the squad as possible.

It is possible to change to a different petal type during a flower planting session without interrupting the session. Doing so will instantly consume 1 petal of the newly-selected type and start the depletion timer from there.

Types
This table displays the icons of all the petal types, organized by color and flower species. Types with an N/A do not exist in the game.