Will there be any 'fantasy' plants added as well?
Are there going to be new underground plants or mushrooms?
Toady has mentioned a few times that only real plants will be new for this release. Not sure about real-world mushrooms - there might be some among the garden plants/flowers Toady has mentioned, as those don't seem to be on the list?
That plant list looks really promising and if Toady doesn't utilize it to its full potential, I'm sure modders will.
What are we left with in regards to the finalizations anyway?
Adventure mode information screen, villagers acknowledging god/vampire rulers, and guard/intruder checks. Then the pre-release bugfixing.
Some of the new plants such as cotton, hemp (yes the fibers of marjuana were used), flax, and jute suggest new textiles, so, is it true that we will have new fabrics?
I see papyrus in there, will we be able to make paper right now? Though I guess modders could incorporate Papyrus into some sort of reaction recipe and make paper out of that. It does suggest being able to make paper later on.
In general, if the industry already exists, then the new plants will likely be used accordingly, otherwise likely not (see Toady's mention of lacking coffee and tea drinks). So, the textile plants should be usable for textiles, but papyrus shouldn't.
Now that we have that smell thing, I don't suppose Durian will have that intense smell that it has? Never smelled it myself in real life though, but I've heard of it.
We've only heard of creatures smelling, and we've been told that ambient smells aren't in (or at least mostly).
Edit: I notice that coconuts aren't in, yet you mentioned them in a devlog last july, what happened to those?
As mentioned earlier, the existing palms are the cocos palms. Everyone should remember that we have a
good number of real-world trees already.