There are currently 3 types of flowers:
You can get one Rose of Ra and one Sea Lily per character from Universities which give out these bulbs. See Flower Locations
Flowers are used to compete in The Test of the Formal Garden. They are also used for the Festival of Maat - note that harvesting a flower for petals destroys the flower, and does not yield a bulb.
Crossbreeding can be used to breed two bulbs of the same basic type of flower into new strains. For example, you can cross 2 different Rose of Ra bulbs together (like Onion Skin and White Giant) to get a new strain of Rose of Ra. Which splint is used has a significant effect on the results (i.e. OS/WG is different than WG/OS). You cannot breed two flowers of the same strain together, except by renaming one bulb and then crossing them (this does result in normal crossbreeding but the results show little variation since both splints are the same as the parent). Crossbreeding uses one Nut's Essence.
Stressed Breeding can be used on a single bulb to produce a new, slightly different strain, with the option of a left or right stress. This appears to work in a circular fashion; left-stressing a bulb 5 times and then right-stressing 5 times gets you back where you started, and a certain number of stresses in the same direction (which number varies by strain) will bring you back where you started as well. Stressed Breeding uses one Cobra's Bite Extract.
Flowers can be planted, and then an hour later the flower will bloom. At this point you can fertilize a flower to produce additional bulbs. You can only fertilize a flower every 2 Teppyhours. Before a flower produces a bulb it will show signs indicating it will bulb soon. Continue ferting to get a bulb. A single flower can produce an unlimited number of bulbs. A bulb taken from a flower can be crossbred or stressed to produce a new strain, or planted to grow another identical flower. The number of fertilizations required before a flower shows signs of bulbing varies depending on the type of flower and the type of fertilizer used:
| Fertilizer | LS Fertilizer | SS Fertilizer | Notes | |
| Rose of Ra | 20-30 | 10-15 | 10-15 | accurate but randomly variable |
| Sand Bloom and Lily of the Sea* | 48 | 24 | 24 | Exact |
| *except: Kudzu Lily | 32 | 16 | 16 | accurate and non-varying |
Fertilizer is made from Catfish, Perch, and Tilapia fish in a kettle. LS Fertilizer and SS Fertilizer are Liquid Sun and Sticky Sun and are made from normal Fertilizer via Alchemy. Sticky Sun is by far the best fertilizer which can be produced. Black Syrup Fertilizer (BSF) has been sold or given as prizes in events; it takes only about 3 BSF to make a Rose of Ra or Kudzu Lily produce a bulb, and 4 BSF to make any other Lily or Sandbloom produce a bulb, and fertilizations with BSF are 4 hours apart rather than 2. However there is no way to produce this at present.
A gene->color generator can be found at http://www.silverchat.com/~silver/atitd/gene.cgi . Tries to encompass the above information (as of January 13th) as well as whatever silver could clean from forums and chats.
In addition to gene.cgi, silver has also written http://www.silverchat.com/~silver/atitd/gene2.cgi which shows all possible crosses between two flower genomes assuming the left parent contributes some left part of its genome to the left side of the child genome - though it is unclear that all possible crosses can actually result in the game.
A recent addition to gene.cgi ('show all stresses') and gene2.cgi ('show parallel stresses') shows what happens if you stress a flower left and right to length of its genome (or compares several genomes in the parallel stress case - which can be used to decide which of several genomes with the same phenotype was actually picked).
See more info in the Rose of Ra Genetics subpage.
http://webpages.charter.net/salej/otherflowers.html Starscream's selected sandblooms, sea lilies and roses.
http://www.geocities.com/greekfire/temp/flower/show2.html Blizzard's army of sandblooms.
http://neologic.net/atitd/flowers/ Chichis' roses.