Quick answer
American Mahjong has eight flower tiles, seasons included, and all eight are interchangeable. They are not bonus tiles but working tiles that card lines ask for, written F. Flowers can be passed in the Charleston. A discarded flower can be called for a pung or larger, and for a pair only when it completes your whole hand. A joker can fill a flower group of three or more, never a flower pair.
In Chinese play, flowers are bonus tiles set aside for points. In the American game they are working tiles that card lines ask for. This guide covers how the card writes them, the rules for passing, calling and jokers, and what a flower tells you in your own rack or on somebody else's.
What flowers are
Eight tiles decorated with flowers or seasons. In American Mahjong they are all interchangeable, so any flower counts as any other flower. They are not bonus tiles, not set aside, and not scored separately. They are simply a tile type, like a wind or a dragon, that certain card lines require.
How they appear on the card
The letter F on a card line means a flower. Two Fs together means a pair of flowers, three means a pung of flowers, and so on. Because all eight are interchangeable, a pung of flowers is any three flowers, which makes flower sets easier to complete than sets of a specific numbered tile.
Passing, calling, and jokers
Flowers can be passed in the Charleston like any other tile. A discarded flower can be called to complete a pung, kong, or quint of flowers, exposed like any other set. Jokers can stand in for flowers inside a pung or larger. A pair of flowers must be two real flowers, and like any pair it can take a discarded flower only as the winning call, when that flower completes your entire hand.
Why a single flower is worth holding
A lone flower can look like a tile with nothing to match on the rack. But any flower matches any other, and a set has eight, so seven more are still out there, against three for any one suited tile, wind or dragon. Treat a lone flower like a lone dragon, not a spine, but not a throwaway either, until your direction is set.
Reading somebody else's flowers
Because every flower is the same tile, a player who exposes a pung of them has not narrowed down a suit or a number for you. They have told you their hand is one of the lines with a flower group of three or more, which rules out every line without one.
When flowers go down across the table, look at what else that rack has exposed. Flowers plus a suit group is a very different hand from flowers plus winds, and checking the combination against the card narrows the lines that rack can be building.
It also tells you something about supply. There are eight flowers, so a pung of three real flowers on the table leaves five. If two more are sitting in the discards and you hold one, only two are left for the flower pair you were hoping to complete, and either may already be on another rack. That is worth counting before you keep holding for it.
Seasons are flowers too
Open a set and you may find eight tiles that do not look like a matching group at all. There are four flowers and four seasons, with different artwork, sometimes numbered. They look like two categories, but in the American game they are one.
Season tiles are not a separate class here, they are flower tiles, and all eight count as identical for building a hand. A pair of flowers can be any two of the eight. This is a real difference from Chinese play, where flowers and seasons are bonus tiles set aside when drawn. A set made for the Chinese game has the same eight, but it has no jokers, so it will not work for the American game without adding them.
So the artwork is decoration. Cherry blossoms, lotuses, plum branches, a numeral in the corner, none of it changes what the tile does. If it is in the flower group, it is a flower.
What the card asks for
Flowers are written on the card as F, a single letter, and a pair of them as FF. Because any flower serves, there is nothing further to decode. Where the card shows F, any of the eight will do.
They turn up across the card in groups of different sizes, and each line states exactly how many it wants. Read that number before you plan around a flower. A line that wants three or more can fill the group with jokers and can call a discarded flower to complete it. A line that wants two needs two real flowers, and a discarded flower can finish that pair only as the winning call.
Note too that flowers belong to no suit. They cannot fill a gap in a run of numbers, and a line that wants flowers wants flowers specifically.
Put it into practice
New to the game? Start the course at Lesson 1, Meet the Tiles. The first three lessons are free and need no account.
Already play? Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
Whether that flower stays or goes depends on where the rest of your hand is heading. Our AI coach reads a dealt hand, names the direction, and tells you what to keep, free.