I was beginning to think that the fastscatter node might be the answer (e.g. from 2008 "...Fastscatter handles backlight SSS...") until I found 2005's   "...only to discover that Point Lights cannot have Depth Mapped Shadows (which FastScatter requires)..." , and then this 2012 comment from bagginsbill: "...FastScatter and the Translucence channel are pretty much self-lit. Get rid of that..." So maybe translucence/fastscatter are non-starters?

I mentioned in the previous post that I guessed that the scatter node wasn't actually doing much. So just to check that I tried the old-fashioned very simple diffuse/specular/bump (no alternate). Here's the result (and yes, I forget to apply the transparency mask to specular strength, hence the ghostly white squares):

I think that more-or-less confirms what I thought? Here's the very, very basic shader I used (render settings were exactly the same as before):

Obviously my observations are limited to this specific scene/viewpoint with its specific lighting setup.

Going back to bagginsbill's comment that "... Since they have no thickness, scatter doesn't really do its job, which is a big part of the realism of a leaf shader...", I'm intrigued by the "...doesn't really do it's job..." part.

• So for one-sided zero-thickness leaves does the scatter node do enough to be worth using?

• Are there certain situations where we will see a difference (e.g. backlit leaves shadowing each other)?

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The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident.
And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU.

*also available in ShareCG, DAZ, and HiveWire3D flavours (the DeviantArt and CGBytes flavour have been discontinued).