Big Flower

Big Flowers are plants in that can be found throughout the world at set points of interest. They appear on the map screen with circles around them with a radius of 40 meters. If a player is planting flowers within the Big Flower's radius, it will contribute towards blooming the Big Flower. After 300 flowers are planted in the radius, the flower will bloom, and within the first hour after it blooms, it will reward players who plant flowers nearby with an expedition to collect a fruit from it. (If a player has not yet unlocked the ability to do expeditions, they will not get a reward from a Big Flower.) Any player that walks within 100 meters of a blooming Big Flower can swipe vertically across it while viewing its information page to gain 1-2 nectar, even if they have already retrieved the fruit. The nectar provided by the Big Flower depends on the type of flowers that were planted in the radius.

There are some flowers on the map that look like Big Flowers but have a rainbow bud. These are a different kind of flower, called a Special Spot.

Stages
A Big Flower has 3 stages:
 * Sprout: players have planted 0 to 49 flowers within.
 * Bud: players have planted 50 to 299 flowers within.
 * Blooming: players have planted 300 or more flowers within.

Each time a Big Flower grows to its next stage, it will flash in light and change in appearance. In addition, when more than 150 flowers are planted in the radius, the bud will flash and falling petals will temporarily surround it.

Types
When a Big Flower blooms, the type of flower it becomes depends on the flowers planted inside its radius. The color of the flower (and therefore the type of fruit it provides) depends on the color of the planted flowers, and the species of the flower (and therefore the species of nectar the fruit provides) depends on the species of the planted flowers.

Color
A Big Flower's eventual bloomed color is determined by the color of the flowers that players plant within, with additional complexity added by white flowers. For red, blue, and yellow flowers, having a majority of that color of flower planted within the radius will cause the Big Flower to grow into that color. For a Big Flower to grow into a white flower, at least 70% of the flowers in the radius need to be either white, or another color that is not the most prevalent non-white color, and when the 300 flower goal is reached, the color of the Big Flower will still be randomly picked. When this occurs the flower species is first determined, and then the color is picked based on odds unique to the species.

The likely eventual color and type of a Big Flower is displayed in the screen that appears when an unbloomed Big Flower is tapped. The color displayed does not guarantee that it will be the final color of the Big Flower, because it could still change as more flowers are planted. The colors "red", "blue", and "yellow" will display in this message if that color of flower is the most common non-white color within the radius, and if the 70% rule for white flowers has not been reached. The color "white" is never displayed here, as if the 70% rule has been reached, the color will be displayed as "???" instead. For example, if there are 40 white flowers and 30 red flowers within a Big Flower's radius, the Big Flower will say it will be red, because there are less than 70% white and non-red flowers. If an additional 20 yellow and 20 blue flowers were planted within, they would contribute to white as they are less common than red flowers, and the Big Flower would display "???" as its eventual color.

Species
There are 2 main categories of flower types: regular flowers (from standard petals), and seasonal flowers (such as pansies, camellias, and roses). If only regular flowers are planted within the radius, the Big Flower will likely be some color of regular flower, with a chance of being a seasonal flower. If mostly seasonal flowers are planted within the radius, the Big Flower will most likely bloom into a seasonal flower, though with some additional complexity and randomness. The chances of different flower species blooming has varied throughout the game's lifespan, and events have frequently added temporary boosts to certain probabilities.

History
Throughout the game's lifespan, the flower species Big Flowers commonly provide has changed frequently to add variety. Originally these changes happened in a rather inconsistent way, but since March 2022 there has been a consistent monthly flower system. Whenever a Community Day event occurs, all Big Flowers will bloom into the flower the event is themed around for the duration of the day, no matter what flowers are planted in the radius.

When the game was released in October 2021, there were two tiers of rare flowers: pansies and roses. Planting regular flowers in the radius would usually make the Big Flower bloom into a regular flower, but there was a small chance that it would bloom into a pansy. Planting pansies in the radius would usually make the Big Flower bloom into a pansy, but there was a small chance that it would bloom into a rose. This made roses very hard to get.

The second Community Day on 18 introduced poinsettia flowers. After that date, poinsettias replaced pansies as the main rare flower, though planting mostly pansies inside the radius continued to bloom a pansy, and this method of blooming out-of-season flowers has continued ever since. Planting poinsettias or pansies had a low chance of making a rose bloom.

On 1, camellias were introduced, and these joined poinsettias as rare flowers that had a low chance of blooming when regular flowers were planted. After the Community Day on 22, poinsettias were no longer available this way. On 11, plum blossom flowers were introduced, and now, planting regular flowers had a chance of blooming pansies, poinsettias, camellias, or plum blossoms. The Valentine's Day event on 14 made roses very common for the day and lowered the rarity of the type.

From March 2022, the system of flower availability from Big Flowers was simplified, and now each month, planting regular flowers around a Big Flower has a chance of blooming a selection of seasonal flowers. The second tier of flower rarity was removed, and now roses are treated the same way as other rare flowers. Community Days continue to change the flower availability for that day only. The following table shows the flower types available each month:

Mutations
A mutation is a rare chance of a Big Flower blooming into a different but related flower.

When the game launched initially, there used to be a rarity hierarchy, where Regular Flowers had the possibility to bloom into Pansies, and Pansies had the possibility to bloom into Roses. But once the flower forecast was simplified, this rarity hierarchy was removed, but the feature for seasonal flowers to bloom into other seasonal flowers stayed.

It is roughly a 3% chance for a mutation to happen. Mutations are flowers within the same season as the base flower, often being the flower introduced after the base flower.

The following table shows which seasonal flowers can mutate to what other seasonal flower:

Sprites
These are the sprites used for each type of Big Flower in the screen at the end of a flower planting session.

Trivia

 * The places where Big Flowers appear on the map are taken from Wayspots in Niantic's Wayfarer system. This means that they will frequently appear at the same locations as features in other Niantic games, including PokéStops and Gyms in Pokémon GO, and Portals in Ingress.