Cactus

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

Obtaining[]

Breaking[]

A cactus can be mined by hand without taking damage. The tool used to mine the cactus does not affect mining speed.^[1]

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, or moves a block into its space. Trying to pull it with a sticky piston does nothing.

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 can also be found in some desert village buildings.

Mob loot[]

Endermen can pick up cacti. When they die, they drop the cacti they're holding.

Chest loot[]

Trading[]

Wandering traders can sell a cactus for three emeralds.

Usage[]

A cactus block may be placed only on sand, red sand, suspicious 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.

A cactus destroys any item that come into contact with it, including other cactus in item form. Falling blocks such as sand and gravel are not destroyed when falling onto cactus; instead, they are transformed into item form (as happens when it falls into any block with a hitbox that has a height less than 1, such as slabs). The item created in this case will sometimes (though not always) be destroyed by the cactus. The conversion to an item applies even when the falling block is a cactus (which is possible with /summon).

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 spikes) 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[]

Cacti 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). Bone meal does not work on cacti to speed their growth.^[2] 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[]

Breeding[]

Cacti can be used to breed camels and reduce the remaining growth duration of baby camels by 10%. Camels also follow a player holding a cactus.

Composting[]

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

Sounds[]

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Block states[]

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

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.
v1.0.14					Cactus blocks now can grow to a height of three blocks, allowing for farming. Prior to this update, cacti would not grow.
v1.2.0		preview			Cacti now only generates in the new desert biome, instead of anywhere with sand.
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, a bug shared with many other items. This is because it used the larger 'item' size, rather than the 'block' size.
Java Edition
1.7.2		13w36a			Cacti now generate in the new mesa biomes.
		13w39a			Added red sand, which cactus can also grow on.
1.9		15w43a			A potted cactus can now be found in the basement of the newly added igloo.
		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.
					Banners and signs can be placed horizontally adjacent to cactus, immediately breaking the cactus. This action was historically disabled.
		18w06a			Cacti can no longer be smelted.[4]
		18w14b			Cacti can be smelted again, now yielding 1 experience instead of 0.2 per smelting operation.[3]
1.14		18w43a			The texture of cacti has been changed.
		18w44a			The texture of cacti has been changed, once again.
		18w50a			Potted cacti can now be found in desert villages.
					Cacti items can now be found in chests in desert village houses.
		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.
					Added wandering traders, which sell cacti.
1.20 (Experimental)		22w42a			Cacti can now be used to breed camels.
1.20		23w14a			Cacti can now be planted on suspicious sand.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.1.3					Added cacti.
v0.2.0					Cacti are now available in the creative mode inventory.
v0.4.0					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.
v0.5.0					Cacti are now available from the nether reactor.
v0.8.0		build 1			The top texture of cacti has been changed.
		build 4			The top texture of cacti has been reverted.
v0.9.0		build 1			The model of cacti has been changed. The spines behind cacti now render regardless of where viewed from.
v0.12.1		build 1			Cacti are no longer available from the nether reactor.
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			Cacti can now be found desert village house chests.
					Cactus can now be used to fill composters.
1.16.0		beta 1.15.0.51			Cactus once again deals damage to mobs and items standing on top of it.
1.20 (Experimental)		beta 1.19.50.21			Cacti can now be used to breed camels.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added cacti.
PlayStation 4 Edition
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.

• 

  A cactus can survive in unusual locations using /setblock). However, this no longer works since 1.16.^[verify]

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 could 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. Paintings can also be placed on the sides of cacti, creating a nasty trap for anyone that tries to go through paintings.
• 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.
• Blocks can be placed on top of a cactus, including other cactus blocks.
• It is possible to place redstone next to a cactus block without destroying it.
• 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) and even a 23 block tall one on the seed 184693195438010998 and coordinates (16274576 ~ 10230656). All these seeds, found by the Minecraft@home research project, work on Java Edition 1.14.4.^[5]
• Top snow can be placed next to cacti without breaking the cacti, no matter how many top snow layers stack.

Gallery[]

• 

  Naturally generated cacti

• 

  Naturally occurring cacti in a badlands biome.

• 

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

• 

  Natural cactus generated against a village house.

• 

  Natural floating cactus over a lake.

• 

  Cactus generated on stone due to a lava lake.

• 

  Cacti floating in village garden.

• 

  Cactus Cola, an item featured in the Trails & Tales Event.

Heights[]

• 

  A natural one block tall cactus.

• 

  A natural two block tall cactus.

• 

  A naturally occurring unusual four-block tall cactus.

• 

  Another naturally occurring unusual four-block tall cactus.

• 

  A natural five block tall cactus.

• 

  A naturally occurring rare six-block tall cactus.

• 

  A natural eight block tall cactus, extremely rare.

• 

  An improbable natural nine-block tall cactus.

• 

  A twelve-block tall cactus, extraordinarily rare.

• 

  A natural nineteen-block tall cactus.^[6]

• 

  A natural twenty block tall cactus.^[7]

• 

  A natural twenty-two block tall cactus, the second tallest known cactus.^[8]

References[]

External Links[]

• Block of the Week: Cactus – Minecraft.net on February 10, 2017