Oblivion:Ingredients

This article provides an overview of all the alchemical ingredients available in the vanilla version of Oblivion. Several more ingredients are added by the Shivering Isles expansion, all of which are detailed at its ingredients page. Each of the ingredients has its own page that provides more complete information (see links in the following table).

Other information relevant to ingredients is available on the following articles:
Alchemy Effects provides a listing of each ingredient with a given alchemy effect.
Ingredient Locations provides locations with high concentrations of multiple ingredients, such as farms.
Ingredient Translations provides the ingredient names in German, French, Spanish, Russian, and Latin.

Availability
There are several ways to obtain ingredients:
Already-harvested samples
Ingredients that are considered as food can be found in most houses or dining areas. These samples will eventually respawn.
Ingredients can be bought from merchants, who will have a random selection of available ingredients. Food can be bought from food vendors or inns; other ingredients can be bought from alchemy vendors. The inventories of all merchants will eventually respawn.
Ingredients can sometimes be found in containers. Food cupboards and food sacks contain food, while certain loot containers contain a single random ingredient. Cupboards and containers will respawn, but sacks do not.
Some other individual ingredients can be found in various buildings around Cyrodiil. In particular, most Mages Guilds have a few ingredients sitting out in the open. Ingredients in the guilds will respawn, though in other buildings, they may not.
Harvesting from plants
A large number of ingredients come from plants that can be found growing in Cyrodiil or in the Planes of Oblivion. Some plants are widespread, with thousands of plants growing in various places, whereas others are much less common and therefore more difficult to find. At any one time, you can only try to collect a single sample of an ingredient from each plant, but there is a chance that you will find nothing. Your Luck level does not affect this probability. However, each plant's ingredient will respawn even if you found nothing, so you can always try again later.
Two load screen messages make different claims about plant regrowth. One says that they will regrow "in later months", where another says they will regrow "after a few days". While technically both are true, the latter is the more accurate statement. Plants (other than Nirnroot) normally regrow after 72 hours.
If you'd like to ensure that you always get a sample from a plant, make sure to Quicksave before you attempt to gather from it. This way, if you come up empty, you can simply Quickload and try your hand again until you get the sample you need. Excellent for low levels when certain ingredients are tough to come by.
Collecting from creatures
The other common source of ingredients is from creatures. Many creatures have body parts (meat, heart, skin, horn, teeth, etc) that can be used as alchemy ingredients. When you kill the creature, you can collect the ingredient from its corpse. Most creatures will respawn. However, there is no guarantee that the creature that reappears will be the same as the one that you previously killed.
There are also a few creatures that always carry a specific ingredient. Most notably, the Bitterfish Goblins at Miscarcand always carry Scales (if they don't somehow have a scaly skin that is identical to Slaughterfish skin). These creatures can therefore be considered to be a reliable source of certain ingredients.

Standard Ingredients
This table lists all of the standard ingredients in the game. The primary effect is the one you get if you just eat the ingredient. Using two or three ingredients that have the same magical effect will result in a potion. The higher your alchemy level, the more effects you will be able to use. Alternatively, select two or three damaging effects to manufacture a poison.

Click on an effect name to see all ingredients that share that effect. Italicized text means the effect is unique and can never appear in a potion.


  Bonemeal and Vampire Dust appear in two identically-named variants (two separate stacks in the inventory) so they can be combined with themselves providing a potion with all 4 effects at once.

Rare Ingredients
These ingredients are of limited value for alchemy: some of them can never be used for alchemy purposes (even though the game considers them to be ingredients); some have alchemy effects with limited value; some have a very limited number of possible samples. None of these ingredients are found randomly, either in containers or in merchants' inventories. If the notes mention that the ingredient is quest-specific, then that ingredient is tagged as a Quest Item and therefore does not appear in the alchemy menus.
 


  There are two types of Human Heart with different value and weight but with the same alchemy effects.

Unavailable Ingredients
These ingredients exist only in the Construction Set and are not normally available in the game.