Leaves

"Leaves were one of Minecraft's earliest additions, arriving alongside logs, ores and sand way back in 2009 ... They've changed a lot over time, first being tweaked to drop saplings, then to decay when deprived of their trunk, then to drop apples, then even to have water drip through them when it's raining!"

- Duncan Geere

Leaves are blocks which grow as part of trees.

Natural generation
Leaves occur naturally on trees throughout the Overworld. Oak leaves also generate in woodland mansions.

Obtaining
Leaves can only be obtained with shears or Silk Touch enchanted tools.

Usage
Leaves from trees spontaneously decay (disappear) when they receive a block tick if they are not connected to any log, either directly or via other leaf block, with a maximum distance of 6 blocks. Player-placed leaf blocks will never decay.

Leaves which decay or are destroyed without using shears yield saplings or sticks 5% (1/20) of the time, and otherwise drop nothing. Jungle leaves drop saplings 2.5% (1/40) of the time. Oak and dark oak leaves also have a separate but additional 0.5% (1/200) chance of dropping an apple, making it extremely rare but possible for a single leaf to drop both an apple and a sapling simultaneously. Rates are increased by the Fortune enchantment. Leaves that are burned do not yield saplings or apples.

Leaves take on a different shade of green depending on the biome in which they are placed.

Leaves are always transparent to light, but cannot be seen through when the graphics mode is set to "Fast"; the transparent regions are instead black. They diffuse sky light, causing the shadows they cast under trees.

Redstone Component
The state of a leaves block --including a player-placed block-- changes instantly when the distance to the nearest Log or Wood block changes, up to 6 blocks of leaves away. Observers facing away from the leaves will detect this change and transmit a redstone signal in the same game tick, making leaves useful for instant redstone signal transmission.

Composting
Leaves have a 30% chance of increasing the compost level in a composter by 1.

Java Edition
Hard-coded colors
 * In the inventory, Leaves have a color: #48B518.
 * Spruce Leaves have a color: #619961. Not affected by biome or the inventory color.
 * Birch Leaves have a color: #80a755. Not affected by biome or the inventory color.

Biome Colors

These values are generated by the biome dyeing algorithm. See Biome colors for more information.

Bedrock Edition
In Bedrock Edition, leaves appear as snow covered during snowfall, however these appearance are exclusive to snowy tundra, frozen river, snowy beach, snowy taiga biomes and variants. Other cold biome that can snow such as wooded mountains can have snowfall at high elevation but don't turn leaves at that elevation into frost textures.

Block data
In Bedrock Edition, leaves use the following data values:
 * Leaves


 * Leaves 2

Original leaf decay algorithm


In Alpha, leaves would decay using an algorithm that checks whether it has a solid or leaf block underneath it or is adjacent to a solid block. If it doesn't, it must be connected to a leaf block that is also supported as long as it is no further than five blocks away from said support.

Trivia

 * Occasionally, leaves will grow through other blocks, acting as though they are still connected to the tree. They may also completely replace blocks they try to grow into.
 * Leaves do not prevent chests from being opened.
 * Some trees seem to occasionally drop apples or saplings without being destroyed due to creation of leaf blocks not supported by logs.
 * The frost texture in Bedrock Edition is not an instant transition. Instead, the leaves slowly shift from their original color to the frosty one.
 * Leaves disappear when pushed by pistons.
 * Leaves Z-fight with blocks such as carpet that are placed on top; a bug which Mojang decided not to fix.