American mahjong
The flowers
Why American mahjong plays 8 interchangeable flowers, and why each set draws its own.
What it means
Chinese sets usually carry four flowers and four seasons. American play uses 8 interchangeable flowers. JONGG numbers its flower designs 1 to 8; other sets use different numbers or markings. In play, a flower is a flower, and the card asks for flowers without saying which.
Because the flowers carry no information beyond being flowers, their decoration is one of the few places a set has full latitude. Each set draws its own eight, real plants from its own story, each beside its locked numeral, so a 3 Flower in one set may be a camellia and in another a plum, and both are still the 3 Flower.
The traditional plants are the plum, the orchid, the bamboo and the chrysanthemum, the four gentlemen of Chinese painting, one for each season. Other sets draw peonies, lotuses, pines or maples.
The tiles, one by one
Screen 6 of 9 in What's on the tile.
A historian's review of the history on these screens is pending.