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Your email address will not be published.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

Pallikaranai Marsh’s Zone of Influence: Threat or shield for South Chennai?

Pallikaranai Marsh acts as a buffer against Chennai floods. Protecting homes and ecology around it needs a proper ZoI, not weak rules.

Every monsoon, South Chennai goes underwater. The only sponge that soaks up all that rain is the Pallikaranai Marsh, yet around it, 8,619 hectares of land face severe flood risks. Despite this, the State has offered to protect only a fraction of that land.  On October 9th, the Tamil Nadu State Wetlands Authority (TNSWA) told the Madras High Court  that the marsh's interim Zone of Influence (ZoI) is just 36 survey numbers, covering 128.19 hectares. The next hearing of the case is on November 11th.  Scattered "protection"  These plots lie in bits and pieces across seven villages, from Pallikaranai to Perumbakkam.…

Similar Story

Blocked Kovalam-Nemmeli wetland channels risk disaster for South Chennai; Conservationists urge action  

Barriers built for the Mamallan Reservoir block Buckingham Canal water flow, vital to keep the wetland alive, avoid floods and sustain fishing families.

In Chengalpattu district, the main water channels of the Kovalam-Nemmeli coastal wetland, which drains a catchment of more than 270 square kilometres, have currently been blocked. Barriers that obstruct water flow have been built across Chennai's Buckingham Canal at three places: Thiruvidanthai-Vadanemmeli, near the Nemmeli-Thiruporur bridge, and Saluvankuppam. Earlier, we explored how the Mamallan Reservoir causes serious damage to the wetland’s ecology and how fishing livelihoods are affected. Field investigations by the Wetland Conservation Network have recorded the blockages preventing tidal exchange in the Buckingham Canal.           According to officials, these barriers were put up to enable construction of the Mamallan…