Facts on the four leaf clover, did you know?

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The four-leaf clover is an uncommon variation of the common, three-leafed, clover. According to tradition, such leaves bring good luck to their finders, especially if found accidentally. Clovers can have more than four leaflets. The most leaflets ever recorded is eighteen. It has been estimated that there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover. According to legend, each leaflet represents something: the first is for hope, the second is for faith, the third is for love, and the fourth is for luck. It is debated whether the fourth leaflet is caused genetically or environmentally. Its rarity suggests a possible recessive gene appearing at a low frequency. Alternatively, four-leaf clovers could be caused by somatic mutation or a developmental error of environmental causes. They could also be caused by the interaction of several genes that happen to segregate in the individual plant. It is possible all four explanations could apply to individual cases. Certain companies produce "four-leaf clovers" using different means. Richard Mabey alleges, in Flora Britannica, that there are farms in the US which specialise in "four-leaf clovers", producing as many as 10,000 a day (to be sealed in plastic as "lucky charms") by feeding a secret, genetically-engineered ingredient to the plants to encourage the aberration. Mabey also states that children learn that a five-leafed clover is even luckier than a four leafed one. Other plants may be mistaken for, or misleadingly sold as, "four-leaf clovers" for example, Oxalis tetraphylla, a species of wood sorrel with leaves resembling a four-leaf clover. Did you know all this about the four leafed clover? Have you ever found a four leaf clover? I have once. What about you?