Finding a four-leaf clover, luck and legends

It's rare and it's said to hold hope, faith, love and luck. Small wonder that the author is thrilled to have spotted one in her city!

I felt quite thrilled as I found these leaves of Four-leaf Clover, and clicked them on February 5, 2018. Why the thrill?

Here is the entry about Four-leaf Clover. Amongst other things, it says:

The four-leaf clover is a rare variation of the common three-leaf clover. According to tradition, such clovers bring good luck,though it is not clear when or how that tradition got started.

The first reference to luck might be from an 11-year-old girl, who wrote in an 1877 letter to St. Nicholas Magazine, “Did the fairies ever whisper in your ear, that a four-leaf clover brought good luck to the finder?”

It is claimed that there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover, in the wild, However, an actual survey of over 5 million clovers found the real frequency to be closer to 1 in 5000.

Other plants may be mistaken for, or misleadingly sold as, “four-leaf clovers”; for example, Oxalis tetraphylla is a species of wood sorrel with leaves resembling a four-leaf clover.

Some folk traditions assign a different attribute to each leaf of a clover. The first leaf represents hope, the second stands for faith, the third is for love and the fourth leaf brings luck to the finder.

What I photographed might even be the wood sorrel. But since no one seems to be able to tell the difference…I am considering myself lucky!

Comments:

  1. Ramaswamy G S says:

    Yes. You are surely lucky, being able to run lots of programs in parallel. Whereas able, capable ones are just seeing ur pix and commenting and cribbing that they could not go.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Similar Story

Where are the flamingos? How Metro construction is devastating Chennai’s Pallikaranai Marsh   

In a report, environmentalists warn marsh blockages increase flood risk for South Chennai and call for urgent measures to avert ecological damage.

On a regular day in May, the calls of migratory waders and other shorebirds foraging in sprawling mudflats fill the air in the southern reaches of Chennai. May is the dry season for the Pallikaranai Marsh, when water levels naturally recede, exposing the critical feeding and breeding grounds that attract hundreds of bird species to this globally recognised urban wetland. But this year is different. The mudflats are gone. In their place is a stagnant expanse of water. This unusual water level during the dry season is not due to early rains. Indiscriminate construction within the marsh is blocking the…

Similar Story

CIDCO’s new flamingo study raises questions on Navi Mumbai airport safety, wetland future

The Bombay Natural History Society had earlier pointed out that protecting wetlands and ensuring aviation safety should go hand in hand.

The City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO)'s decision to appoint Australian aviation consultancy Avisure to study bird movement around the Navi Mumbai International Airport has raised fresh questions about the future of Navi Mumbai's wetlands. The agency has cited the ongoing study as grounds to defer legal protection for DPS Flamingo Lake, arguing that no irreversible decision should be taken until the assessment of bird-related aviation risks is complete. But bird movement around the airport is not being studied for the first time. Findings of BNHS More than a decade ago, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) was…