Cactus

Cactus is both a Plant and an item that drops when that plant is harvested.

Cactus plant
The Cactus Plant can be found in the Desert biome on sand. Cactus Plants can be chopped down like trees, which drops the Cactus item. Mining the Sand blocks beneath a Cactus plant will quickly destroy the entire plant and yield all possible Cactus items.

Conditions
Cactus Plants will only grow under the following conditions:


 * 1) There needs to be at least one thick layer of sand below it.
 * 2) The Cactus requires one space of open ground to either side. A raised tile will block growth, but a lower tile will not.
 * 3) The sand it grows on needs to be above the ground level.
 * 4) They only grow at least 378 blocks away from the edges of the world, i.e. not in zone where the Ocean biome can be generated.

Cactus item
Cactus is a crafting material obtained from chopping down Cactus Plants (described above), in the same manner as trees. It can also be harvested by removing a sand block below the base of the cactus. Due to the properties of sand, the player can level a desert by simply stripping off a horizontal layer of sand by moving forward while swinging a pickaxe, and this will clear out all the cacti at the same time as it fills up your inventory with sand, which can be made into bottles or potions.

Cactus is used to craft the Swiftness Potion and Thorns Potion.

It can also be placed and used as a building material, similar to wood, but with far less options.

It also provides early-game armor and weaponry. These are roughly copper/iron-level, but are generally easier to get in quantity if you don't mind the ridiculous appearance.

History
Cactus Cactus Кактус