How to play Rare Leaf Tycoon: rules, odds and tips

How does the game work?

1. Propagate. Each slot takes cuttings from one mother plant. A normal cycle takes 8 hours.
2. Reveal. You only see the leaf pattern once you reveal it: green, unstable, stable, rare. Every new pattern goes into your herbarium. You turn over each harvest card by card, from the most common to the rarest, and decide on each plant right there on its card.
3. Decide. Sell on the market, deliver to a customer, or make the plant a new mother.
4. Expand. Spend coins on more slots and new plants.

How does the game start?

You start with a stable Pothos mother and 3 slots. The first demo plant grows in 15 seconds, your first customer pays 40 coins for it, and you buy a fourth slot for 20. The starting slots then ramp up faster: 4 min → 1 h → 3 h, then the usual 8 h. That means your first harvest fits into your very first visit. From nursery level 2, you can also claim a daily gift of 25 coins and a cutting.

Nursery level

The game doesn’t show everything at once. The core (shelves, mothers, market, orders, journal, purchases and looks) is yours right after the tutorial; the rest opens up with your nursery level. You earn points for every leaf you reveal and every purchase under Expansion. A revealed leaf is worth 1 point, a purchase 10. Your level never drops.

Level	Title	Points	Unlocks
1	Seedling grower	0	the core game
2	Grower	4	My collection, daily gift
3	Gardener	20	shelf gear, neighbours and trading
4	Leaf trader	40	the Collector, market rumours
5	Breeder	70	breeding

Stable or unstable mother?

Every plant has two mother positions. The stable mother comes with the plant; the unstable one appears when you promote a revealed unstable plant into it. The odds:

Line	green	unstable	stable	rare
stable	5%	17%	76%	2%
unstable	20%	25%	47%	8%

The unstable line gives four times the chance of a rare leaf, but also four times as many green plants. The stable line is more reliable for stable orders. A stable or rare plant can become the stable mother, only an unstable plant can become the unstable mother, and a green plant can't be a mother. This is a game model, not real botany: for how variegation really works, see our guide to variegation reversion.

The mother matters. When a cutting comes out with the same result as its mother, it inherits her pattern 50% of the time (for rare leaves, say, half-moon, sector or rays); otherwise the pattern is drawn at random. A rare mother in the stable line also adds 1.5% to the chance of a rare leaf (taken from stable). So promote your prettiest plant to mother.

How much is each plant worth?

A plant's price is the plant's base price × the result value (green 60%, unstable 100%, stable 120%, rare 300%) × the market state. The table shows what one plant sells for in a normal market:

Plant	Unlock	green	unstable	stable	rare
Pothos 'Marble Queen'	free	12	20	24	60
Syngonium 'Albo'	120	13	22	26	66
Philodendron 'Pink Princess'	650	14	24	28	72
Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation'	1,000	16	28	33	84
Alocasia micholitziana 'Frydek'	2,000	19	32	38	96
Philodendron 'White Knight'	3,800	21	36	43	108

How does the market work?

There's one market for all plants, and it changes every 12 hours. The next state is drawn independently, but the game shows a rumour about it. The rumour is right 70% of the time; otherwise it names one of the other two states. The last column shows how likely a state is when the rumour names it:

State	Price	Chance next interval	When the rumour says so
crash	60%	25%	60.87%
normal market	100%	50%	82.35%
bubble	180%	25%	60.87%

So a rare Pothos sells for 36 coins in a crash and 108 in a bubble.

Customer or market: which pays more?

A customer always wants 2 plants of one kind. Choose a free mix (any plants, a bonus of 50% of the base price per plant) or a stable delivery (stable or rare only, a 75% bonus). Each order uses a credit: you hold up to 2, and they refill one at a time every 12 hours.

Example with two stable Pothos: a stable delivery pays 78 coins, the market pays 28 in a crash, 48 normally, and 86 in a bubble. The customer wins unless there's a bubble. Two green plants in a free mix pay 44 coins.

Orders come in turn from four regular customers, and each order you fill moves their story along. It doesn’t change any prices.

What happens when I'm not playing?

Each slot holds at most 3 finished plants, including unrevealed ones. When the queue is full, the slot stops until you sell, deliver, or promote a plant. Up to 24 hours away count toward growth. The market and order credits follow real time.

What should I buy first?

Purchase	Cost	Requires
Syngonium 'Albo'	120	—
Slot 5	500	—
Philodendron 'Pink Princess'	650	Syngonium 'Albo'
Slot 6	1,200	Slot 5
Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation'	1,000	Philodendron 'Pink Princess', Slot 6
Slot 7	1,400	Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation'
Alocasia micholitziana 'Frydek'	2,000	Slot 7
Slot 8	2,800	Alocasia micholitziana 'Frydek'
Philodendron 'White Knight'	3,800	Slot 8

The game suggests the order in the table but doesn't force it. A new plant mainly adds to your collection and customers; its sale price is only a little higher.

Shelf equipment

With coins you can fit each slot with a lamp and a humidifier. A lamp shortens the normal cycle from 8 h to 6 h (not the starting ramp-up), and a humidifier adds 1.5% to the chance of a rare leaf (taken from stable). An extended shelf lengthens the slot's queue from 3 to 5 plants, which helps if you visit rarely. Equipment belongs to one slot, and each extra piece of the same kind costs more:

Piece	Lamp	Humidifier	Extended shelf
1	100	60	80
2	180	140	160
3	280	260	280
4	400	420	420
5	550	650	600
6	750	950	800
7	1,000	1,300	1,050
8	1,300	1,700	1,350

Pots

Pots are looks only: you see them on your shelves, with your mothers and at your neighbors'. For in-game coins you can buy Cobalt glaze (250), Celadon (600), Porcelain (1,200), Charcoal (2,000), Blush (3,200), Gold (5,000). Paid pots are Jade & gold, Rose gold, plus the seasonal Autumn burgundy (September 15 – November 30) and Frosted snowflakes (December 1 – February 28). Seasonal pots aren't sold out of season, but once bought they're yours to keep.

Daily gift, Collector and breeding

The daily gift gives 25 coins and an unrevealed cutting of a random unlocked species, which is rare 10% of the time. There's no streak; missing a day costs nothing.

Every 3 days the Collector wants one specific pattern of one species (rare 50% of the time) and pays 4× the market price. In season (September 15 – November 30 and December 1 – February 28) they pay 50% more, and 3 fulfilled requests win the show trophy.

Breeding in the slot detail: a direct cutting from the mother makes the next plant her exact copy (48 coins for Pothos with a stable mother), and rare fertiliser makes it a rare leaf (600 coins for Pothos). Both help with the Collector and your pattern collection.

The herbarium collects patterns: 8 per species, 48 in total, grouped by result from green to rare. Missing patterns show as shadows, and one tap sets any of them as your growing goal.

Achievements and reminders

Each of the 22 achievements pays 20 to 600 coins, 3,210 in total.

In the mobile app (iOS and Android) you can turn on reminders for when cuttings are ready, a shelf fills up, or a market bubble starts. Your phone schedules them itself, with no server, and they stay quiet at night. Turning them on earns you 50 coins, once. The web version in a browser has no reminders.

Herbarium and Neighbors

The herbarium has 48 patterns: 8 for each of the six plants, from green to rare. Selling a plant doesn't remove it from the herbarium. The Neighbors tab opens at nursery level 3. If you turn on “Show my greenhouse” there, other players see your greenhouse and herbarium under a name you build from suggested words or a nickname of your own. They can send you a heart, and you compete on two leaderboards: most rare leaves this week and most patterns found. When you open a neighbor's link, you can sell up to 2 plants a day at their market price. You can report an inappropriate name with Report in the visit window, and hide any player you'd rather not see.

Tips

• Don't leave queues full. Three finished plants stop the slot, and you lose growing time.
• Don't sell rare plants in a crash. A bubble pays three times as much (108 instead of 36 for Pothos).
• Save stable plants for customers unless there's a bubble.
• Make your first unstable plant a mother. It opens the unstable line with better odds of a rare leaf.
• Watch the rumour. When it says bubble, a bubble comes 60.87% of the time, so holding on to rare plants pays off.
• Promote your prettiest leaf to mother. Offspring with the same result inherit its pattern 50% of the time.
• Back up your game in Settings. It's saved only on your device. More on the support page.