Cactus

Cactus

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool	Any tool
Blast resistance	0.4
Hardness	0.4
Luminant	No
Transparent	Yes
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

A cactus is a plant block that generates naturally in dry areas.

Obtaining

Breaking

A cactus can be mined by hand without taking damage. The tool used to mine the cactus does not affect mining speed.

Block	Cactus
Hardness	0.4
Breaking time
Default	0.65

When the spot a cactus is placed in becomes unsuitable, such as when a solid block is placed next to it or its supporting block is removed, the cactus block uproots and drops as an item.

A cactus also removes and drops itself as an item, if a piston tries to push it (trying to pull it does nothing) or moves a block into its space.

Using a sign on the side of a cactus causes both the sign and the cactus to drop as items.

Natural generation

Cacti naturally occur in desert and badlands biomes (twice more common in desert than in badlands). They generate as one (¹¹⁄₁₈ chance), two (⁵⁄₁₈ chance), or three (²⁄₁₈ chance) blocks tall. Rarely taller cacti can be found if generation chooses to generate another on top of one already generated (although not as commonly as sugar cane).

A potted cactus can also be found in an igloo with a basement. Potted cacti and 3 block cactus also found in some desert village buildings.

Chest loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Cactus	Village	Desert house chest	1–4	80.6%
Bedrock Edition
Cactus	Bonus chest	Chest	1–2	60%
	Village	Desert house chest	1–4	80.6%

Trading

Wandering traders sell cactus for three emeralds.

Usage

A cactus block may be placed only on sand, red sand or another cactus block. A cactus breaks itself (and drops as an item) if any block with a solid material, or lava, occupies any of the 4 horizontally adjacent blocks. It also breaks if on the sand and the block above is water or lava.

When any entity, including players and mobs, touches a cactus, 1 damage is taken every 0.5 seconds. Damage from touching a cactus is reduced by armor, but touching it also damages the armor. Mobs do not avoid cacti when they pathfind.

Cacti destroy any items that come into contact with them, including cactus blocks harvested above them.

When a minecart hits a cactus block, the minecart drops as an item and is often destroyed, although a hopper can pick it up faster.

A cactus can also be placed in a flower pot, where it is rendered harmless.

A cactus (excluding its spines) is ⁷⁄₈ of a block in width (the same as chests) and a full block in height, however the collision box is ¹⁵⁄₁₆ of a block high.

Farming

Main article: Tutorials/Cactus farming

Cactus naturally grow to a height of three blocks, adding a block of height when the top cactus block has received 16 random ticks (i.e. on average every 18 minutes, but the actual rate can vary widely). Bonemeal does not work on cacti to speed their growth. A cactus does not need light to grow and is non-flammable. If a cactus has space directly above it, it grows even if the newly-grown block would immediately break due to adjacent blocks.

Smelting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Smelting recipe	Description
Green Dye	Cactus + Any fuel	1	‌[Java Edition only]
Green Dye	Cactus + Any fuel	0.2	‌[Bedrock Edition only]

Composting

Placing a cactus into a composter has a 50% chance of raising the compost level by 1.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block	block.cloth.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	None	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.cloth.fall	None	0.5	0.75	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	block.cloth.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	16
	Block placed	Blocks	Placing the block	block.cloth.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	1.0	0.8	16
	Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	block.cloth.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition: ^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Description	Namespaced ID	Volume	Pitch
?	Breaking the block	?	?	0.8
?	Falling on the block with fall damage	?	?	?
?	Mining the block	?	?	0.5
?	Jumping from the block	?	?	?
?	Falling on the block without fall damage	?	?	?
?	Walking on the block	?	?	?
?	Placing the block	?	?	0.8

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
Cactus	cactus	block.minecraft.cactus

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Cactus	cactus	81	tile.cactus.name

Block data

See also: Data values

In Bedrock Edition, cacti use the following data values:

Value	Meaning
0	Freshly planted cactus.
1 to 15	The data value is incremented at random intervals. When it becomes 15, a new cactus block is created on top as long as the total height does not exceed 3.

Block states

See also: Block states

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
age	0	0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15	A freshly-planted cactus – and a cactus that has just grown cactus above it – each have an age of 0. The age is incremented at random intervals. At age 15, a cactus may try to grow more cactus above it.

History

Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.6					Added cacti.
					The cactus inventory texture has a side texture on top.
					Player receives 1 damage when punching them, right clicking on them, or making steps on them.
					The cactus is a full block and acts identically to any one.
v1.0.11					Cacti can now be placed only on sand, and now have the requirement that the space around it has to be empty. Previously, cacti could be placed to form a damaging floor: both players and mobs would take half a heart of damage when they walk on a cactus block. This made it useful for traps, such as a hallway with a cactus block floor that would kill all mobs that walked on it.
					Collecting cacti no longer hurts the player.
					The model and texture have been updated to have spines around the block.
Java Edition Beta
1.2					Cactus can now be smelted, giving cactus green.
1.8		Pre-release			When dropped onto the world, the cactus item is no longer slightly larger than most other blocks, despite the fact that they are visibly smaller when placed. This is because it uses the larger 'item' size, rather than the 'block' size.
Java Edition
1.9		15w49a			Cacti now break if adjacent to lava, or if on sand and the block above is water or lava.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 81.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of cacti has been changed.
		18w44a			The texture of cacti has been changed, once again.
		19w03a			Placing a cactus into the new composter has a 20% chance of raising the compost level by 1.
		19w05a			Cacti now has a 50% chance of increasing the compost level in a composter by 1.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.1.3					Added cacti.
0.2.0					Cacti are now available in the creative mode inventory.
0.4.0					Cacti now appear 3D in the inventory and when dropped; previously they used a completely 2D item texture like many other plants.
					Cacti now obey regular placement exceptions when being placed underwater or on snow.
0.5.0					Cacti are now available from the nether reactor.
0.12.1		build 1			Cacti are no longer available from the nether reactor.
?					The spines behind cacti now render regardless of where viewed from. This may have happened after 1.0.
Pocket Edition
1.0.0		alpha 0.17.0.1			Potted cacti now generate in the basements of igloos.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.0		beta 1.2.0.2			Cacti are now found inside bonus chests.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of cacti has been changed.
					A 3 block tall cactus and potted cactus now generates in new desert village houses.
					Cacti can now be bought from wandering traders.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.1			Cactus can now be found desert village house chests.
					Cactus can now be used to fill composters.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added cacti.
		1.90			The texture of cacti has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added cacti.

• 

  Until Beta 1.8, cacti were somewhat larger than other blocks when dropped.

• 

  In older versions, endermen could place cacti on any block.

Issues

Issues relating to "Cactus" or "Cacti" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• Cacti can be placed underwater, provided they are placed on sand, and they grow if they break the surface.
• Cacti can be placed next to saplings, but the cactus breaks when the tree grows.
• Endermen can move and place cacti. Thus, they can increase the cactus population in deserts by moving cactus blocks as they grow.
• Signs can be placed on top of cacti.
• It is possible for cacti to generate on blocks other than sand due to terrain generation; refer to the gallery for examples.
• Cactus can be used in the desert to see if the player is in a newly generated area. If most of the cacti around the player is only one block high, then it is most likely new land.
• Dying from touching a cactus displays "[playername] was pricked to death" in the chat messages.
• It is possible to place blocks on top of a cactus.
• It is possible to place redstone next to a cactus block without destroying it.
• By placing more cactus blocks on top of a cactus, it is possible to create an arbitrarily tall cactus. However, this does not grow naturally.
• A 20 block tall cactus can be found on the seed 43931985876593125 at coordinates (-9711824 , ~ , 7726416) and more recently a 22 block tall one on seed 11343195073417814 at coordinates (14955936 , ~ , -3750655), in Java Edition, must be on 1.14.4 version. These seeds were found by the Minecraft@Home research project.
• Cacti are one of the very few methods in the game that can destroy items or gear made from netherite.

Gallery

• 

  A cactus can survive in unusual locations using /setblock).

• 

  Naturally occurring cacti.

• 

  The bottom of a cactus seen with the "floating cactus" bug (see below).

Odd generation

• 

  Natural cactus generated against a village house.

• 

  Naturally floating "ghost cactus."

• 

  Yet another village cactus.

• 

  Cactus generated on stone due to a lava lake.

Heights

• 

  A naturally occurring four-block tall cactus, quite rare.

• 

  A naturally occurring six-block tall cactus, very rare.

• 

  A natural eight-block-tall cactus, extremely rare.

• 

  A natural nine-block tall cactus, ridiculously rare.

• 

  A natural twelve-block tall cactus, extraordinarily rare.

• 

  A natural nineteen-block tall cactus, cataclysmically rare.

• 

  A natural twenty-block tall cactus, the world record as of 06/24/2020.

• 

  22 block cactus stack, the tallest cactus as of 3 July 2020 found by the Minecraft@home team

References

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]