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[THLawrence]

Tower caps require a few things to grow.
1.) Underground. Only tower caps grow underground. Above ground trees follow the next 2 rules.
2.) The ground must be 'farmable'. That is you mast be able to build a farm on it. This is soil, sand or muddy ground.
3.) The ground around the tile must have a certain level of moisture.
      a) Above ground the moisture is dependent on the biome.
      b) Muddy ground will have a high level of moisture.
      c) Trees and tower-caps reduce the moisture in surrounding tiles.

Number 3 is the really important one here. This means that you can have an unmuddied tile growing tower-caps if a nearby tile is muddy or open to a high moisture biome. By nearby it means within 2 or 3 tiles. However moisture does not move across z-levels.

[Hamster Man]

To grow towercaps (and any other trees BTW) on unmuddied soil, you have to verifiy, that it's not only soil floor over the wall of rock, but also has a full soil wall on the level below.

To check this behavior just mine out a soil below forest, leaving only floor, and see: now it will not produce new trees.

Huh. I never knew that. They should probably update the wiki with this - looks like it still has old info on Tower-cap farming.

[JoRo]

After digging out a big sandy chamber under the forest, I tapped a murky pool and let it drain.  As soon as the water was gone, BAM a young tower-cap sprouted up.  So, moisture is apparently key.

[LegoLord]

I haven't tried experimenting with other underground biomes. Anyone ever successfully make a  [BIOME:UNDERGROUND_LAVA] tree sprout?

This sounds awesome.  I wonder what benefits there would be to a tree like that?  Would it be lighter, or what?

[Chaz Turbo]

I remember trying to mod in [BIOME:SUBTERRANEAN_LAVA] for some plants and a tree, but I was given this in the errorlog.txt:

Unrecognized Plant Token: SUBTERRANEAN_LAVA
Unrecognized Plant Token: SUBTERRANEAN_WATER
Unrecognized Wood Token: SUBTERRANEAN_LAVA

I don't remember testing this further (as in starting a fortress to test it out).

[Kazindir]

As far as the underground waterways, I always pave those with stone to prevent just that from happening.

Stone or not, if it gets covered in mud (which it will if there's water) it seems it can support a tower-cap.

Paved roads don't get muddy though.
I've not tried this with tower-caps however, but stone paved roads above ground will stop shrubs and trees going on them at least.

[LegoLord]

As far as the underground waterways, I always pave those with stone to prevent just that from happening.

Stone or not, if it gets covered in mud (which it will if there's water) it seems it can support a tower-cap.

Paved roads don't get muddy though.
I've not tried this with tower-caps however, but stone paved roads above ground will stop shrubs and trees going on them at least.

That's kind of the point of "b"uilding roads or constructing "floor-roads"

[Tigershark13]

actually i think moisture does travel Z levels, i've had murkey pools above where i'm digging and got constant wet soil/stone warnings (very annoying)

[THLawrence]

actually i think moisture does travel Z levels, i've had murkey pools above where i'm digging and got constant wet soil/stone warnings (very annoying)

That is dampness not moisture. Moisture refers to something else entirely.

[Hamster Man]

Odd thing.

My underground reservoir (which I always smooth down) got damp because I had to let it drain for maintenance... and one of the smoothed tiles started to sprout a Tower-cap. Naturally, that wouldn't do, so I turned on a squad of my military and had them stomp patrol over it again and again.

The odd part of it is that after they stomped it into oblivion, it turned into a patch of sand.
... so apparently dead tower-cap = soil?

[Andir]

Odd thing.

My underground reservoir (which I always smooth down) got damp because I had to let it drain for maintenance... and one of the smoothed tiles started to sprout a Tower-cap. Naturally, that wouldn't do, so I turned on a squad of my military and had them stomp patrol over it again and again.

The odd part of it is that after they stomped it into oblivion, it turned into a patch of sand.
... so apparently dead tower-cap = soil?

Smooth tiles are not paved tiles if I understand that right.  You could smooth dirt, but it's still dirt.

[Techhead]

Stomped or chopped-down tower-caps will turn the tile they were on into sand. If you build a dirt road over it, it will revert to the default rock layer.

[Sarasti]

So if I'm not mistaken, this would allow for a sandless map with magma and an underground river to produce glass?

That's pretty awesome.

[Hamster Man]

I think it'll just revert it to "soil" rather than sand, but might be worth checking out.

[Random832]

I think it'll just revert it to "soil" rather than sand, but might be worth checking out.

It's a known bug; it creates sand. (and, no, you can't smooth dirt. tower caps grow over muddy smooth rock. You need to actually construct a floor to prevent it from growing)