Leaves

Leaves are a type of block. They are abundant in normally generated maps, appearing on every tree. Leaves have one texture which appears on all 6 sides of the block.

Leaves are available for use in Creative mode. They are often used in making plants, foliage, and tree houses. Leaf blocks are very weak, are readily destroyed by hitting them with any tool, are extremely vulnerable to explosions and are highly flammable.

In Survival mode, Indev, Infdev, and Alpha, leaves cannot be obtained. Destroying leaves occasionally yields saplings which can be planted by the player in order to grow new trees.

As of the Halloween Update, leaves would no longer wither (decay) when the logs are removed. Notch has confirmed that this was a bug.  As of Minecraft Beta 1.0, this has been fixed.

Leaves can be destroyed faster by using a sword, though swords lose double normal durability when used on leaves. As no other tool yields any increase in removal speed, leaves are best removed with bare hands, or a block or object unaffected by durability, so as not to damage your tools unnecessarily.

The Rules
The rules for leaf withering have recently changed, and the current rules are at this time unknown; however. in previous version leaves behaved as following: Leaves exist in three states:


 * 1) Supported - Leaves which are on top of any solid block or beside a log block are Supported.
 * 2) Connected - Leaves which are connected to Supported leaves by a path of 5 or less blocks are Connected.
 * 3) Temporary - All other leaves are Temporary and will vanish after a random amount of time.

Examples
In the following images, Supported leaves are marked with S and Connected leaves are numbered 1-5 by their distance to the nearest Supported leaves.

Basic Support


In this image, we see the basic setup of one Supported leaves block and 5 Connected leaves block. Leaves placed at the red X would be Temporary and vanish after a while.



As before, but the Supported block now rests on another block of leaves. As the second block is itself Supported, the entire structure is permanent.



At first glance, it may seem like there are six Connected leaves here, but the log block makes the floating leaves beside it Supported.

Connected Distance


The distance to Connected leaves is measured by following the shortest path of leaves, without moving diagonally.

Going Further


Leaves placed above Connected leaves are Supported. Effectively, moving up one tile resets the Connected distance.

Trivia

 * Leaves were used as windows before Glass was implemented.
 * In Alpha, although Torches can be placed on leaves when using fast graphics, they cannot when using fancy graphics. Torches placed on leaves while using fast graphics will remain on leaves even if you switch graphics modes.
 * In Alpha, while hitting leaves, clouds and Snow cannot be seen behind the block you are hitting.
 * As of the Halloween Update, when leaves are placed in the inventory using the /give command or an inventory editor, they appear grey. This is because, like grass, leaves are different colors depending on which biome they're in, rather than being the same throughout the map.
 * Leaves force natural light dispersion (-1 light level per block rule), which at this time only effects sunlight. It still makes any leaf block in direct sunlight effectively a level 14 light source.
 * Placing leaves on top of a chest does not prevent the chest from being opened.



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