Bamboo Leaves, and a Leafy Bamboo Forest ( kbin.social )
Now, yes, bamboo already kind of has leaves, but not full blocks of leaves, which is what this post is about.
If you search "bamboo forest" online, you'll see that, unlike in Minecraft, most of the sky is covered by leaves. What I propose is adding a new biome, "old growth bamboo jungle", that has leaves at the top of the bamboo.
Old Growth Bamboo Jungle
This is a variant of the regular bamboo jungle where the bamboo also has leaves. It's about as common as a regular bamboo jungle, or maybe slightly less. Not much else to say really. Have some pictures to see why this looks awesome.
Old growth bamboo jungle seen from above.
Looking up in an old growth bamboo jungle.
Leaf Mechanics
The leaves would treat bamboo like other leaves treat logs. And the leaves have a blockstate that renders a piece of bamboo inside the leaf block. This is because I couldn't find a way for the leaves to sit properly on the bamboo without having the bamboo need to go straight through the leaves and leave an ugly air gap.
Breaking this "bamboo leaves with stem", does not give that block, it gives the leaf (if you were using the right tool) and a piece of bamboo. You can create this block by placing a bamboo leaf and trying to place a bamboo on it, or the inverse, placing a bamboo and then a leaf block on it. The bamboo inside the leaves acts like a normal bamboo, capable of growing and such.
To get these leaves renewably, breaking a bamboo with small leaves (the ones that already exist) drops 0-2 "bamboo leaf" (an item). Crafting 4 of these yields one "bamboo leaves" (the block).
Giant Bamboo Jungle
This biome touches more on the fantasy side of Minecraft. It's a forest of massive bamboo shoots a little taller than jungle trees. The stems are made of a new block, bamboo that is a full block wide with a hollow inside. There are some leaves at the top and maybe some small sprouts along the rest of the stem too. You can also find regular bamboo in small clusters as well as pandas.
Very ugly, shoddy mockup, but I hope you get the general idea.
I'm aware that this biome is pretty barebones, but honestly I'm blanking on ideas for it. If you have any I'd love to hear them.
Another post about giant bamboo forests, that served as inspiration for this one
