The Great Tree

File:Papermario09.jpg

The entrance to the Great Tree.

The Great Tree (Japanese 大　樹 Taiju) is a giant tree in the game Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It is located in Boggly Woods and is the home of the Puni Tribe. There is actually a secret entrance in the Great Tree that Mario must go through to get inside, seeing that the main entrance is locked. However, the secret entrance is anything but secret as it is labeled "Secret Entrance" and is surrounded by flashing lights.

The Emerald Star is located within the tree. As such, Lord Crump and his men invaded the place to find it, even if that meant teaming up with the Jabbies (the rivals of the Punies), and additionally, imprisoning the Punies. Punio enlisted the help of Mario, Goombella, Koops, and Flurrie to liberate the Punies, take down the Jabbies, retrieve the Emerald Star, and drive the X-Nauts out of the Tree. Mario also obtained the Super Boots while he and his friends were here. After Mario and his friends find the Emerald Star, Crump steals it and activates a 5-minute self-destruct mechanism. Soon Mario, Goombella, Koops, Flurrie and the Punies corner Crump and demand that he surrenders the Crystal Star and leave the tree forever. However, instead of surrendering, Crump deactivates the detonator and summons his robot, Magnus Von Grapple and attacks. After defeating the robot, Crump and the X-Nauts are driven out of the tree and Mario is given the Emerald Star as a reward.

Other notes

• 1,000 years ago after the Shadow Queen was imprisoned the Goomba hero gave the Crystal Star to the Punies to keep safe.
• The Goomba Hero also was the one who hollowed out the Great Tree, to give the Punies a safe place to live, away from the monsters of the Boggly Woods.
• There's no way to go around the tree or over the high roots.
• An invisible ! Block contains the FP Plus badge near the waterfall outside.
• The Great Tree is the equivalent to the tree Raphael the Raven was staying on in Paper Mario. Deep in Jade Jungle the tree has an entrance in the same place, but inside is a spiral staircase carved from the wood. At the top is a branch to Raphael's nest.

Enemies

• Jabbi (Mario does not fight them in battle; the Punis do.)
• Pale Piranha
• Pider
• Magnus Von Grapple (Chapter 2 Boss)
• X-Naut Trooper