Limits on a Staff of Flowers?

Question

Staff of Flowers

Staff, common

This wooden staff has 10 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 charge from the staff and cause a flower to sprout from a patch of earth or soil within 5 feet of you, or from the staff itself. Unless you choose a specific kind of flower, the staff creates a mild-scented daisy. The flower is harmless and nonmagical, and it grows or withers as a normal flower would.

The staff regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff turns into flower petals and is lost forever.

From what I understand, this magic doesn't preclude any specific flowers. Ex: You could choose a magical and harmful flower, but the one that is created by the staff of flowers is a nonmagical and harmless.

Question:

1. Can you use this for a 300 GP Gilded Flower in the Summon Fey spell? (Gut reaction is no).

2. What is the meaning of growth? Does that imply that the staff of flower starts of as a bud?

3. Can you summon creatures that are of non-magical plant life? (Again, gut reaction is also a no)

Answer 1

The staff creates normal flowers

1. You can't create a gilded flower. This creates a normal, nonmagical flower. A gilded flower is, well, gilded. Gilding is the process of covering an object in a thin layer of gold, which is not part of the flower. It also would not make sense economically if an item that has a crafting cost of 100 gp (DMG, p. 129) would be able to create multiple items worth 300 gp per day.

2. It creates a flower, not a bud. The default flower produced is a mild scented daisy, not a bud. The flower grows and withers as a normal flower would. For example, if you created one on a patch of earth, and tended to it, continuing to water it, and there is enough sunshine, it will continue to grow. If you don't water it, or it is in the dark underground, it will wither, as any normal flower would.

3. It's unlikely to create plant creatures. The text describes a mundane, normal flower as the default example. It certainly could not create a plant creature that can fight or is hazardous in any way, as the flower must be harmless. The game currently does not have any harmless plant creatures that are flowers, so they are not an option unless your DM creates one for you. So this could only work if your DM plays along, and agrees to it. The pot of awakening, another common item can create one awakened shrub every 30 days — it would be over 200 times as many creatures here if you could on average create over 7 plant creatures per day with this item.

Xanathar's Guide on Everything states in its introduction to these common magic items:

These items seldom increase a character's power, but they are likely to amuse players and provide fun roleplaying opportunities.

So think of it like that: how can you enjoy the staff to create amusing roleplaying moments; not: how you can use it for mechanical or monetary advantage.