In a show that has Talking Animals or Funny Animals, with the animal characters mainly being mice, birds, lizards, insects, etc., sometimes you can expect there to be a body of water like rivers, lakes or ponds as the setting. The best way for these animals to have transportation is to use a leaf as a boat in order to travel from place to place.
This is a trope in which an animal character will use a leaf as a boat. It may be a tiny character in a regular-sized leaf, or a human-sized character in a huge leaf from a fictional plant. It can also be used in fairy tales as well as being a common motif in any tale or art to do with little people like fey or fairies.
Often seen in Mouse World settings.
If the traveller is a tiny fairy or a Living Toy, the boat can be powered by cute little animals like butterflies, small birds or fish.
Closely related to Lily-Pad Platform. See also Tree Vessel.
Examples:
- Anpanman: Peter's mode of traveling.
- One Piece: One of Ussops many plant based tools after the two year time skip is Boaty Banana which produces a giant canoe shaped banana.
- In Mouse Guard, Sadie uses one to travel to Calogero.
- Hans Christian Andersen's "Thumbelina" is the Ur-Example. She escapes from the Toad and her son on a leaf boat, floating down a stream. Her boat is pulled by a butterfly for some time.
- The Rescuers: Bernard and Bianca use a large leaf propelled by Evinrude the dragonfly in order to find and rescue Penny.
- This was used once in Antz.
- In Fun and Fancy Free, Mickey, Donald and Goofy cross the giant's moat on a giant leaf. Jiminy Cricket also uses one in the introduction.
- Woodstock had one in Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown.
- In The Princess and the Frog, Ray goes out on the bayou in one of these during his funeral.
- In Cat City, Lazy Dick makes one for himself to ride a river in The Amazon Rainforest.
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest: Zak and Crysta ride in a canoe shaped leaf boat at one point.
- The elven boats in The Lord of the Rings, while not literally made of leaves, use this as a visual motif.
- In Tad Williams' Otherland series, the heroes' boat turns into a leaf when they travel into a simulation in which they're smaller than the local insects.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: While Link is tiny, he can go on top of a leaf and use his Gust Jar to propel himself across the body of water.
- Dark Cloud: Used in The Lost Woods dungeon to go to a hidden bonus dungeon.
- Simon the Sorcerer: One puzzle requires the protagonist to improvise one of these after being shrunk.
- Legends & Myths: One shows up towards the end of the City of Eyes level. If you click on it, it grows swan-like wings and sails away, only for another to replace it. It doesn't serve any purpose, but it's pretty.
- Clumsy uses a leaf boat in The Smurfs cartoon special "Smurfily Ever After" to deliver invitations for Woody and Laconia's wedding, with his first stop being the Pussywillow Pixies.
- Some types of Ants use leaves to cross streams.
- Water striders are predatory insects that "walk" on the surface-tension of still ponds. When they find a dead or drowning bug, they'll drag it to a floating leaf, so they can eat in peace without the risk of being swallowed by a fish from below. Occasionally the leaf then gets washed into a stream and carried off, which is one way water striders colonize new ponds.
