FIREFLY BUSH

Every other plant on the wandering trader's list just sits where it is placed. Firefly bush does not: it throws off small glowing particles once it gets dark, which makes it a light source you plant rather than one you mount on a wall. It grows naturally around mangrove swamps, so the 3 emeralds the trader asks per stem is really the cost of skipping a trip to that biome.

It has no crafting use beyond decoration; nothing turns it into dye or any other good. What it is buying is purely the look and the glow, in a spot that a torch or lantern would light just as well but far less quietly.

The Wandering Trader is the only seller, asking 3 emeralds for 1 firefly bush, with no buy-back offer at any price.

No profession villager stocks it. Decorative plants of this kind sit outside the job system entirely, so the trader's row is the whole market.

He asks 3 emeralds each, and 56 of the other 75 come cheaper. Price is the easy part: he draws his stock from a shared pool, so catching one that happens to be carrying firefly bush is the real constraint.

The Wandering Trader asks 3 emeralds for a firefly bush. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

3 diamonds against 72 paper for the same 3 emeralds, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Shepherd at 1.9 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

No workstation or job level sits behind this offer, since the Wandering Trader answers to no village. He turns up near the player on his own, two leashed llamas behind him, stays for roughly forty minutes to an hour, and wanders off again on his own clock whether or not the bush got bought.

Selling firefly bush back to him is not an option. His buying side covers six named items and this is never one of them, so the trade only ever runs from his stock into the player's. His inventory is a rolled sample too, so the one you find might simply not have it that visit; a name tag removes his despawn timer if the build needs a steady supply.

A full stack costs 192 emeralds across 64 trades, if the trader has that much stock. Since a handful of bushes already lights a decent-sized patch after dark, most builds only need a few rather than a whole stack.

The same trader often carries other landscape items worth grabbing in the same visit: golden dandelion, name tag, packed ice, blue ice, gunpowder and podzol.

A firefly bush throws off little points of light at night, which look like a light source and are not. The block itself gives almost nothing to the light level, so mobs still spawn happily beside a bush that appears lit.

That makes it decoration rather than safety. Swamps and mangrove swamps are where it grows, and it sits well beside water and roots for that reason, but any base that relies on it for lighting is a base that will find creepers in the garden.

Firefly bushes belong to the wetter, greener ground: swamps and the edges of water rather than open fields. In a build they do the job a particle effect would do, which is unusual for a block you can hold.

The fireflies only appear at night, so a garden built around them looks like an ordinary bush by day and changes entirely after dusk. That is worth planning for rather than discovering.

Because the bush gives no real light, anywhere you use it still needs a proper light source under the floor or behind a wall if you want the area to stay free of mobs.