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How many Flowers are in the set, and are they all the same?

An American Mahjong set has eight Flowers, and all eight are the same tile for every purpose on the card. Whatever is painted on them, a season, a number or a different bloom, means nothing: any Flower matches any other. Flowers belong to no suit, and because there are eight of them, they are the one tile that can make a quint or a sextet with no Joker at all.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-20.

Eight tiles, one identity

Every American set carries eight Flowers among its 152 tiles. Many sets make them look different from one another: four seasons, four named blooms, a small number painted in a corner, sometimes characters as well. It is decoration. On the card a Flower is simply a Flower, and any one of the eight can stand wherever the card asks for one. A Flower marked with a two does not belong to the twos, and a Flower marked winter is worth no more in December.

The same goes for pairs and larger groups. Two Flowers of completely different designs are a matched pair. Three are a pung, four a kong. Nobody at the table should ever ask whether your Flowers match, because by rule they always do.

No suit, and no say in the colors

Flowers belong to no suit. The card prints them in a color like everything else on a line, but when you count how many suits a line takes, you leave the Flowers out, exactly as you leave out the Winds. A line printed in one color with Flowers on it is still a one suit hand. The Flowers sit beside the numbers without committing you to anything.

That makes them wonderfully flexible. A Flower that fits one line on the card usually fits several others, which is one reason so many players are reluctant to let them go.

Why eight changes the arithmetic

Every numbered tile, Wind and Dragon comes four to a set. That is why five of anything needs a Joker: four naturals is all there is. Flowers are the exception. With eight in the set, a quint of Flowers, or even a sextet of Flowers, can be made entirely of naturals, and a hand holding one is not short a Joker.

Jokers still work with Flowers in the usual way. A Joker may fill a place in a pung, kong, quint or sextet of Flowers, and never in a single or a pair. On the 2026 card, the only sextets on the card are both made of Flowers, which is exactly the kind of group only this tile can support.

Calling a Flower, and passing one

A discarded Flower can be called like any other tile: to complete a pung or a larger group in an exposed hand, or as the tile that finishes Mahjong. Any Flower will do for the call, whatever it looks like, because it is identical in the only sense the rules care about.

In the Charleston, nothing forbids passing a Flower. Only a Joker may never be passed. Whether you should is strategy rather than rule, and our own teaching leans toward holding them, because a tile that fits so many lines is rarely the one you will miss least. Passing two or three of them to the same neighbor is a generosity you may come to regret.

New to the words? Flower · Suit · Sextet · Joker