How common are four leaf clovers? Especially the ones found in a patch of three leaf clovers. Are they a genetic mutation of some sort?
They’re fairly common, and yes, they are a genetic mutation.
http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~ysp/MSN/posts/archives/may97/862164687.Bt.r.html
With all due respect to clover expert Dr. Vincent (from Wiggum’s link), I don’t think they’re all that common, since I’ve never found one the times I’ve looked. Not that I made it my life mission or anything, but I spent about an hour on a few occasions.
For what it’s worth, I have a variety of water plant in my pond called water clover. They all have four leaves. I’ve often wondered what the significance would be if I found a three leaf clover among all the fours.
Arnold,
That’s really surprising to me that you’ve spent that much time looking for them, and not found them. NOTE: I’m not saying you’re lying. From my personal experience, I have found several within a half-hour or so. What region of the country do you live in? Maybe the climate plays a role in how often the mutation occurs.
Arnold, don’t feel bad. I used to want so badly to find four-leaf clovers in my parents’ back lawn (almost all clover, very little grass at the time) and never could. I would spend an hour looking and get frustrated.
My grandmother (then 75+ years old) would come into the back yard, look for ten seconds with her very farsighted eyes, and find about ten four-leafs. When she was present I could find one or two myself, but when she wasn’t, no deal. It’s the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.
Wiggum, I looked near my parents’ house in Fribourg, Switzerland. To be fair, I probably spent most of my time complaining how they were so hard to find instead of actually looking. My cousin found two in the same spot in about 10 minutes one day. :mad:
We used to look for four leaf clovers constantly, and they were as rare as could be. Once in a great while some lucky kid would show up with one, but not often. One day I was walking to school with a friend and glanced down thinking I saw one in a small patch of clover. You always thought you saw them but it was usually two clovers together giving the impression of four leaves. But this time it a=was a big four leaf clover. Going through the patch, less than two square feet, I found another, and another. Over the next week I pulled close to thirty of them out of that patch. Never equalled.
Perhaps they’re so rare because people pick them whenever they see them? 
I was in a clover field for horses once. There were tons of four-leafed clovers, just in the corner where I was standing, some of them very large.
What I wonder about is five-leafed clovers…
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Shadow of the Pigeon -
Weirdo of the Night
It’s people like you all that are responsible for the price increase of clover honey. Thanks a million. > 
I have several clover bulbs that produce nothing but 4 leaf clovers. I could post a picture of them, but right now they aren’t coming up as its too early but one did.
Can you imagine if I was in Ireland & I was hoping one of them would just make a 3 leaf clover for once? 
bump
Reason I’m starting this thread again is that I have some observations and would like to know if anyone else has noticed them, too. Namely, today I found 10 four leaf clovers in a patch, and could have probably found many more if I’d had time to investigate further. (My clover karma is usually pretty good).
What is so unusual is that this ISN’T unusual anymore. I’ve noticed I generally find a whole bunch of them (and five leaf ones, too – but since some consider them BAD luck I leave them alone) in the same patch of ground. Oftentimes, three of the leaves are normal sized, the other one (or two) is smaller and look “immature” somehow. I’ve also noticed that the most “lucky” patches are near pavement, either a sidewalk or a street.
Which leads to my theory: That some sort of pesticide/fertilizer/other chemical is causing normal three leaf clovers to develop additional leaves, which would explain why they all seem to be concentrated in one area (albeit surrounded by “normal” three leaf clovers.) Is there any scientific basis for this, and has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?
The reason that four-leafs tend to come in patches is because each clover patch is a single plant. Dig one up (normal or four-leaf) sometime, and you’ll see that they’re all connected underground. As for being close to sidewalks, that could just be a selection effect: They’re probably just as common in the middle of nowhere, but you’re not in the middle of nowhere as often to find them.
There was a polyleaf patch just outside the physics building… I found about a dozen four-leafs, and several with as many as seven. There were also some interesting ones with three and a half, or four and a half leaflets. Of course, three days after I found it, they re-sodded that area. They do seem to be a lot more common here than in Cleveland or Philadelphia, along with færie rings, rainbows, and aurorae. Maybe Montana is just a more magical place.
By the way, handy, four-leaf clovers aren’t any more common in Ireland than elsewhere. In fact, a four-leaf shamrock would have even less significance than a normal one, since the whole reason that shamrocks are significant is that Patrick used them as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.
Yeah, I used to have a small patch (about 1/2 to 1 square foot) in the backyard that had a lot of four and five leaf clovers, found a seven leaf one time. The strangest thing was one time when I found a branching clover, one branch having four leaves, the other branch having five leaves.
When I was a child (about 20 years ago) we had a huge patch of clovers in our back yard. I would sit out there for hours picking four, five and six leaf clovers. Since then I have always had an “eye” for them. I find them all the time.
I still have the book I used to flatten them in when I was a child. Little Engine That Could. There must be a hundred of them in between the pages of that book. (I use to think I could sell them and get enough money to buy a bike.)
I have to agree that they do often come up in one patch constantly, and then elsewhere they will never show. In one 2ft x 2ft area one time I found a lot of 4-leaves, and numerous 5 leaves or more (including one 9-leaf clover.)
Also, Chronos, I believe what Handy was making an attempt at a joke by impying was that since Ireland is so lucky, they have nothing but 4-leaf clovers.
I actually have bulbs that produce only perfect 4 leaf clovers. If you find a patch of them it may be because you found a bulb that produces only them.
I have bulbs that produce only imperfect 4 leaf clovers. :rolleyes:
I grew up in a State Park (Myre Big-Island State Park, by Albert Lea, MN if anyone cares). There wasn’t much else to do when living there except wander around looking for four-leaf clovers. I found LOTS of them. I found several five leafers as well, plus one six-leaf and one seven-leaf.
I grew up thinking such things weren’t really all that rare, but then again I had large patches of clovers and large lengths of time with which to explore them.