Wondering how to find Minecraft lush caves? We can’t blame you. These beautiful underground biomes feature an abundance of unique and gorgeous items, mobs, and materials. Digging underground in Minecraft can be a terrifying proposition for newer players though, especially when you’re only looking for this secret haven, and not killer monsters.
There may be nothing more breath-taking in the sandbox game than accidentally stumbling upon an glowing, expansive lush cave while exploring underground. However, if you’re too afraid to head into the depths of Minecraft yet, or are just having no luck hunting for a lush cave, there’s a simple way of locating them without setting foot underground. Here, then, is how to find Minecraft lush caves, and everything you need to know once you get there.
How to find Minecraft lush caves
Unlike any other underground biome or structure in Minecraft, you can find lush caves using an overground landmark – the azalea tree. Seeing one of these rare and pretty oak variants indicates that its roots lead to a lush cave.
Simply walk around any overground biome in your Minecraft world, and keep an eye out for one of these azalea trees, indicated by the bright pink flowers that appear on their leaves. When you find one, the simplest method is to dig a circular staircase around the tree’s base, roughly three blocks by three blocks, until you reach the lush cave below your feet. As ever, don’t dig straight down or you might fall to your death.
Minecraft azalea trees can be harvested and grown elsewhere, but only naturally-generated ones will lead you to Lush Caves. To grow your own azalea tree, you’ll need a slightly unique sapling which can be found in the lush cave itself, and look like mini, one-block-high azalea trees. Plant these where you wish to grow your own flowering azalea, and either wait or fertilise it with bone meal, as you would any other Minecraft sapling, and you will eventually have your very own azalea tree.
Minecraft lush cave blocks and items
There are a lot of items that are unique to the lush caves biome, so if their beauty alone isn’t reason enough to venture to one of these cave systems, the rare items you can collect there might be.
Glow berries
Glow berries form on a hanging plant that grows within the Lush Caves biome. These vine-like growths hang from the ceiling, and the berries gradually grow on them, recognisable as bright orange, glowing spheres.
A very unique flora, glow berries can of course be harvested and eaten, but they don’t refill much hunger. Instead, use glow berry vines as a light source, for an atmospheric underground base or pretty garden structure. They can be grown by placing the berries on the underside of a dirt or moss block.
Spore Blossoms
The big pink flower on the ceiling of the above image is a spore blossom. They grow on the ceiling of the Lush Caves and they send particles floating around their position, adding to the beautiful, ethereal atmosphere of these caves – or anywhere else you place them.
You can take spore blossoms from the Lush Caves and place them on any ceiling. This is a good way to make your already cool Minecraft houses a little more whimsical in nature.
Dripleaves
Another plant that know grows in the Lush Caves is the dripleaf plant. They are spindly plants that can grow from clay blocks, and their leaves can be walked on.
What’s unique about these leaves is that if you stand on them for too long, they will droop, eventually forcing you off them. The leaves will recover to their default position when they have nothing on top of them, so you won’t need to replace them if the leaves ever droop too much. While dripleaves look pretty cool in survival Minecraft, they are also a great item to consider for making maps or puzzles thanks to this unique feature.
Lush cave mobs
As with any biomes in the sandbox game, only certain Minecraft mobs can spawn in lush caves. Some of these are even specific to the beautiful underground area.
Axolotls
Minecraft axolotls are found underwater and are cute companions that come in a variety of colours. They also make short work of underwater mobs, since they attack most other aquatic mobs on sight. They’re particularly effective against underwater guardians, so you might want to take one or two on your next Ocean Monument quest.
All you need to create your own Axolotl army are a few buckets, collect a single axolotl in a bucket, transport it back to your base, and release them into a pool to keep them close by. Axolotls are aquatic Minecraft mobs, so they can’t walk on land and escape, but they can wander around out of water for a short time before returning, so don’t panic when you see your favourite pet out of their pond.
Glow squid
Glow squid are not quite unique to lush caves, but can be found there, as – unlike their non-glowing counterparts – they only spawn in water underground. These glowing molluscs are rare in lush caves as they only spawn in darkness, but since there is lots of water near lush caves, you’re likely to find some nearby. When killed, Glow Squid drop glow ink sacs, which can be used to craft a glowing item frame, or to make the writing on a wooden sign appear brighter.
Other mobs that spawn in the Minecraft Lush Caves are:
- Bats
- Spiders
- Zombies
- Zombie villagers
- Skeletons
- Creepers
- Slimes (only in slime chunks)
- Endermen
- Witches
- Spider Jockeys
- Chicken Jockeys
- Tropical fish
That’s everything you can expect to find in a Minecraft Lush Cave and how to locate the secret underground haven in the first place. Once you’ve discovered one of these beautiful caves, we recommend gathering up as much of its materials as possible and using them in a cool, overgrown Minecraft build. We’ve got some excellent Minecraft seeds that might be perfect for it, too, and there’s some seeds in that list that are great for prepare for the upcoming 1.20 update release date, as well.
