Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But at least when I drop the kid up there, I know where she is!

No difference here either

I have tried putting a child under the purple flower, and most of the time I get collectables, but sometimes it doesn't work. But, I have made a decision not to use this "cheat" unless it is used as a last last last resort.

this community can easy substantiate or refute this claim. if you wish to participate, continue reading:

null hypothesis: child at purple flower increases rate of collectibles.
vs.
alternate hypothesis: child at purple flower does not affect rate of collectibles.

condition #1: for 15 minutes, continue to place child at purple flower and count the number of collectibles that appear.
condition #2: for 15 minutes, keep children away from purple flower and count the number of collectibles.

post your results in a response (how many collectibles appeared during each 15 minute period). After we have a statistically significant number of responses, we can decide which hypothesis is more likely to be true.

Generally accept the principle, but the variant that will affect it is that in any regular 15 minute period, no set number of collectibles/mushrooms appears... it's randomized, so even checking #2 against #2 in 4 different 15-minute segments will give very varying results.

bajantara,

i've worked with statistics for many years. the fact that it is randomized is a good thing. experiments such as the one i described are designed for randomized events. that is why just one persons observations are not sufficient, but many people in our community need to do the experiment, post their results here, and then we can evaluate the results. we need approximately 30 people to do this experiment for the results to be meaningful with a p<0.05

If you do not understand p<0.05, don't feel bad. Most laypeople do not understand it. Here is a short explanation about significance, p-value, null hypothesis testing, etc:
http://www.stats.gla.ac.uk/steps/glossary/hypothesis_testing.html#sl

wow, Borg, I'm impressed. That's way too much thinking for me, on the weekend! And I found out the hard way I don't have the patience to search for ANYTHING for 15 minutes straight, so I'm sorry, I can't help. But I'm curious to see your results....

I only ever feel badly when I look in an encyclopedia - and am reminded of all the things I haven't got enough time to know about

It's more lavender than purple for those who can't find it. It's kinda spiky and is north of the gravestones.
It is in between the yellow and blue flowers. I hope this helps.

It's not a purple flower, it looks like a long purple leaf with a V shape cut out of it. But I'm With Turtlezrock I'm just not going to use it.

Bajantara & Borg ya all are way to techno for saturday morning - how do you do it. LOL