As the last of an ancient race of sentient tree creatures, Groot’s body has a lot in common with traditional Earth plants. Those shared traits give him some special abilities, such as rapid growth in a variety of ways.

Much like a household plant, Groot can grow much faster than a human, maturing from a potted baby plant at the end of the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie into a teenager by the end of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” with a relatively short amount of time in between.

That’s not all! Groot can lengthen his limbs almost instantly. During the planning of an escape from the space prison known as The Kyln, Groot jumps the gun and easily stretches his arms to grab a fuel cell off a wall. Unfortunately, this also triggers an alarm, making the prison escape with Rocket and the rest of the gang that much harder to pull off.

When lengthening his limbs, Groot essentially turns his arms and hands into vines that he can wrap around people. They can quickly incapacitate an enemy, growing tighter and tighter with each passing second. Groot even tried to use his vines against Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War” by shooting them underground towards the Mad Titan, but they were easily thwarted by the Infinity Stones the villain already collected.

These vines have also been a bit of a hazard, though, as seen in the post-credits scene from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” Detached from Groot’s body, the vines are almost like a teenager’s clothes left scattered around Groot’s room. What’s Teen Groot even using them for?

But Groot’s limb growth is just the beginning of what he can do by manipulating his tree body.