**Botany** is a tiny terminal game where you grow an ASCII plant that lives on your Tilde home. It thrives when you water it on time, and it sulks—then dies—if you forget.
## Quick start
* In a shell, run: `botany`
* Use the on-screen menu to **Water**, **Look**, **Visit**, **Garden**, **Instructions**, or **Exit**.
* Your plant and stats live in `~/.botany/`.
## How it grows
* Time = score. The longer it lives (and the more generations), the more **ticks** you earn.
* Stages: **seed → seedling → stages 2–5**.
* Species appears at stage ≥2, rarity at ≥3, color at ≥4, “seed-bearing” at 5 (you can **harvest** then).
* Miss watering too long and the plant dies. Typical rhythm:
* **Thirsty after \~18h**, **dead after \~72h** without water.
## Watering
* In the game: choose **Water**.
## Seeing your plant on the web
* URL: `https://tilde.club/~username/myplant`
* Shows status, last watered, and the current ASCII art (including fun holiday art on Oct 31).
### Opt-out of the web view
Don’t want your plant visible on the web? Create this file:
```
touch ~/.notrackbotany
```
The page will show “private” instead of details.
## Visiting and the garden
* **Garden**: browse everyone’s plants from inside Botany.
