Pellet

A pellet is a crystallized chunk of nectar that contains vitamins and other nutrition. They are found on the top of Pellet Posies, and sometimes on the ground, though certain enemies can yield pellets as spoils upon death. Pellets are used to produce Pikmin, by bringing them to the Onion. There is one color of pellet per main Pikmin type, with few exceptions.

Pellets come in a variety of sizes, and a number is present atop each one, reflecting its weight. Pellets with the numbers 1, 5, 8, 10, and 20 exist, although 40-pellets can be seen in some prerelease footage, and some fanon games may have pellets with different numbers. If the color of the pellet matches the color of the Onion it is delivered to, that number of Pikmin is produced, the exception being the number 1, which creates two Pikmin. If not, only half that number, rounded up, will be ejected.

In Pikmin 2... Again?
Pellets return in Pikmin 2... Again?. Being still unchanged. Except with the return of the 20-Pellet but also a new pellet type, the Rainbow Pellet, which makes a seed of a random Pikmin type, but in that case its size and number are like of any pellet making it like a randomizing pellet. In some non-story modes there do have purple, white, gray, pink, cyan, green, brown, black and orange pellets, note being that the white pellet's number is black and the pellet now really white.