Leaves

Leaves are a type of block. They are very abundant in normally generated servers, appearing on every Tree. Leaves have one face which is put 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. Leaves are very weak blocks, they will blow up in an explosion and are flammable.

In Survival mode, Indev, Infdev, and Alpha, leaves cannot be obtained. Busting leaves will instead sometimes drop Saplings which will allow the player to plant a new tree. If the trunk of a tree is destroyed, the leaves will disappear over time, dropping saplings in the process.

The Rules
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.