Ok maybe I'm being too over observant again but the leaf in The Bells of St. John is different than the one in tonights episode. Last week the leaf was just a normal sized leaf, but tonight it was some freakishly large round thing.

Could this be significant? I highly doubt it but always possible

I was really annoyed by that - considering the importance of it, shouldn't they have had the same type of leaf?

We all laughed at the Jacket/no jacket Doctor in "Flesh and Stone". I can hear Moffat furiously scribbling scenes for the 50th which explain that the Doctor went back and swapped it for a different leaf for reasons as yet unexplained. Maybe to do with the Silence or the Pandorica or something.

And then the rest of us laughed at those who laughed when it turned out not to be a mistake

Yes, but I'm still waiting for an explanation of why the man with the dog in The Eleventh Hour was clean shaven one moment and then had heavy stubble the next.

All together now.. wibbly wobbly etc... I do like a good continuity error though... used to buy the nitpickers guides.

Erm, the man/ dog thing was because the real man dreamed he had varying levels of stubble, simples

That irritated me slightly. The leaf was from a completely different species of tree this week.
Pretty sure it's not significant though.

Or is it? When she came back home, Clara said it looked different. Perhaps something has changed?

Also the speech by her dad at the beginning about all the things that happened in order for that particular leaf to be there... what if something occurred to make things happen differently in the time she was away?

This is Doctor Who not Back To The Future everything happens in a wibbly wobbly timey wimey way not like other time travel films where they can change the events of the future

We'll see. But that didn't come across as a throwaway line. And the "wibbley wobbly" thing basically allows for anything to happen without requiring a huge scientific explanation. It's been shown in Who before that you can change the events of the future (but not a good idea where "fixed points" are involved).

Maybe she just has more than one leaf, each representing a different memory.

Her Dad kept one to remind him of when he met her mother so maybe Clara collects leaves.

It was a stand-in stuntleaf.

I don't know she did make a point in saying just what her Dad did that that leaf was the most important leaf in the universe I doubt she could have found one more important to her than the one who brought her parents together.

The original leaf left after one episode because it didn't like the leafist agenda displayed by certain members of the production team.

It was asked back for one more appearance but sadly it had other commitments so had to decline.

Either that or it thought the script was rubbish. The reasons are unclear.

In any case they tried to get a lookalike, and this was the best they could do at short notice.

Brilliant!

LOL!
The first leaf looked like a Maple leaf, which unfortunately of course has a very distinctive shape.
If the second leaf was supposed to be the same one although looking totally different, that's a pretty inexcusable howler IMO!
They really should have re-shot the scene with the Doctor in Clara's bedroom to correct things if it was just a continuity error and not something significant to the ongoing plot.
Perhaps the leaf mutated as a result of being licked by a Time Lord!

Time Lord saliva has a transforming effect.

Perhaps I'd better not go there......

Maybe The Doctor swapped the leaf? Clara's belief in the leaf would still be unchanged if she didn't know.

It doesn't mean to say it was the same leaf that the Doctor looked at last time.

The Maple leaf may simply have been the first one that Clara kept for herself.

When I saw the leaf in the book in The Bells of Saint John I linked it immediately to The Rings of Akhaten parts of the trailer with her and the leaf. Then I realised it was a lot smaller and wondered if Moffat was going to make all this "leaf" stuff part of the story arc.

But then when it reappeared in The Rings of Akhaten and was claimed to be the same leaf I was just disappointed in the laziness that they couldn't even keep the leaves the same. It's one prop item guys! If it has got something to do with a whole timey-whimey thing then I will excuse it when the time comes, but if not then it's just very, very poor continuity on the production side.

Can someone show a side by side? I'm glad it was addressed as we know it was bugging me. ah but it wasn't what I was hoping despite it being very romantic meaning, I guess I was hoping for something more timey wimey like she got the leaf from akhaten.

It was very sloppy continuity, and while on the one hand it may seem trivial, on the other it annoys because it makes me think that they think we're too dim to notice.

Although if they do think that they can't ever have read this forum.

I can see stuff like Rory's badge getting missed because it was only one quick shot, but the leaf was a major plot point!

A major gripe with Series 5-7 is that we're expected to either be intelligent or amazed when the likes of the Doctor's jacket in Flesh and Stone proved to be a significant plot point, but then more glaringly obvious details are shown to be production errors. You can allow for so many, as they're after all human are these people behind the show... but if we're to have to focus with such scrutiny at one plot point, it's insulting to the viewers not to make that the case elsewhere (with the leaf, or Rory's badge for example).

Here you go.
Not from the same species of tree, letalone the same tree!