How many leaves on a shamrock

We use to eat clover raw. Great for salads. All parts of the plant. Sorry bees, but the flower is especially nice. The little, suburban lawns in my neighborhood generally all have clover making an appearance, though it doesn't take over.

Most people only notice it during the first bloom or two, when it's growing fast enough for the flowers to form before the lawn needs cutting. The white puffs look great scattered around, in my opinion, now and then a yellow mixed in. I took it a step further and sprinkled some extra clover seed, especially in the back yard where the squirrels like to dig - the grass isn't so great after a squirrel party but the added clover fills in fast.

I also purchased some pink clover seed - not sure exactly what it's called, but the pink refers to the flower color, which leans more toward a pale purple. It grows up to about 2 feet tall unattended and can be found locally in fields, etc. But it's great to fill in any mostly to partly space with nice blooms that will go all season.

I have a new curbside cherry tree the village installed a few years ago, which I surrounded with clover at the base. I didn't want to dig and disturb the newly planted tree by inserting flowers from the nursery, and clover is beneficial to the soil, so I sprinkled seeds.

I had cool clover greenery within a few weeks, followed by tons of purplish puff flowers. Water daily, lightly, until germinated and that's all you have to do unless you see the plants wilt during extreme dry spells. I do water the cherry tree deeply a few times each season and the clover tolerate the damp no problem, too.

The blooms can be cut and will last in a small vase sometimes up to a week indoors. Once the flowers fade the first time, just cut the clover down by about half - it will come back very fast and look great again in a week.

I cut it back about 3 or 4 times each season, takes only a minute or two, and I have blooms around the cherry tree well into October. I like that most people don't know what it is unless they look closely at the leaves and I like that it's not the typical impatiens or marigolds, etc.

Added bonuses: it comes back every year, of course, the seed is inexpensive, the nitrogen boosts the soil and my cherry tree is the biggest in the area - the village planted tons of them after having to removed dead ash trees, killed by the ash borer beetle a few years ago, to halt the infestation. I can't think of any other explanation why my cherry tree is easily two and a half times bigger than all the others but for the clover and the fact that I watered the clover seed along with the tree.

I have some clover patches here and there in other parts of the garden that I let grow tall and bloom, too. Highly recommend. Very easy to tend and unique. My high school had a courtyard outside the lunchroom and it was crammed with clovers!

We would find 4 and more leaf clovers all the time. It is fun to make crowns and necklaces with the flowers. The stalks are easy to bend and they're fairly strong so it takes a lot to break them. The two seven-leafed clovers were right beside each other which I have found to happen pretty often. What are the odds that someone finds a 7-leaf clover, let alone 2? Just wondering. Thanks for the elucidation of the shamrock question, and the origin of the word.

As a botanist, though, I can't let slide the reference to Trifolium as a family. It is a genus name in the Fabaceae family. Later in the the article, Oxalis is identified as a genus, so I don't think there is a reluctance to use scientific terms in an article for the general reader. Patrick story or which was featured in early Celtic artwork. Before the 17th century, plants were classified by their leaves rather than their flowers. A four-leaf clover, though considered lucky, is not a shamrock.

However, we do know that shamrocks have three leaves. In other words, shamrocks and four-leaf clovers pictured are not the same. For four-leaf clovers, their luck has a history. Druids believed that the four leaves represented the four elements of alchemy: earth, fire, water, and air.

They used them as charms against bad spirits. Get plant information, gardening solutions, design inspiration and more in our weekly newsletter.

The thought of Irish shamrocks evokes visions of the green landscape of the Emerald Isle as surely as does Saint Patrick's Day , itself. But if you're seeking the real McCoy, you'd better start looking for some four-leaf clovers, because you'll need lots of luck: There is no authoritative version.

Ironically, there's also a big difference between shamrocks and four-leaf clovers, for reasons that history makes clear. Consequently, in Saint Patrick's Day celebrations a number of plants serve as Irish shamrocks. Even among the Irish, there is no consensus that dubs one particular group of plants as the true Irish shamrocks, botanically speaking, as was reported in a survey.

The survey, conducted at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin, revealed that when the Irish wear the "shamrock," it can be any one of five plants. Three of the plants are clovers while the fourth is a clover-like plant known as "medick" and the fifth is a wildflower that resembles a clover called "wood sorrel":. Various members of the Oxalis genus, such as the so-called " black shamrocks " Oxalis regnellii and the wood sorrels for example, Oxalis acetosella are sold as shamrocks for Saint Patrick's Day.

These clover look-alikes are more easily cultivated as houseplants than real clover, making them popular as indoor decorations for Saint Patrick's Day. Despite their use as shamrocks, the wood sorrels, etc. What medick, the wood sorrels, and the true clovers all have in common is a leaf made up of three leaflets.

The number three is significant in the Christian religion because of the doctrine of the Trinity. Irish legend has it that the missionary, Saint Patrick, demonstrated the principle behind the Trinity using a shamrock, pointing to its three leaflets united by a common stalk. But there is no way of determining with certainty the exact plant referred to in the legend.

This much we can say about Irish shamrocks, however: By definition, for a clover to represent the Trinity, it would have to bear three and only three leaves. So for all of the good luck they allegedly bring, four-leaf clovers technically can't be considered shamrocks not in the sense in which Saint Patrick made the latter famous, at least.

It was the priests of the ancient Celts, called "Druids," who elevated four-leaf clovers to the status of good luck charms, potent against evil spirits. This is the origin of the modern belief in their power to bring good luck. For the most part, the four-leaf clover is not a separate species, just a freak of nature. That's why people feel so lucky when they stumble across one. If you want to "make your own luck" and don't mind going outside the Trifolium genus, buy an Oxalis deppei plant.

Oxalis deppei is widely sold as the "good-luck plant," because it bears a leaf that always has four leaflets. Considering the Saint Patrick's Day traditions surrounding shamrocks and four-leaf clovers, it is surprising that the clover is often looked upon as merely a common lawn weed , the killing of which we deem central to lawn care.

But it was not always so. Indeed, the book Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 Amazing Lawn Alternatives points out that, until recently it was standard practice to include clover seed in lawn seed mixes. Clover was valued as a built-in fertilizer for the grasses, through its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, and also for extending the lawn's season of green.

The grass lawn is practically an institution for those who expect to find a space composed solely of green grass in front of a suburban home. In their opinion, anything else growing in the space is harmful a " weed ".