I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick’s Day and look forward to seeing a lot of the “wearing of the green” today. However, as someone who is interested in plants, I also want to share two peeves that “get my Irish up” about “shamrocks.”
The first peeve is that we’re seeing an increasing number of four-leaf clovers depicted as shamrocks. Look closely at this image of a “shamrock”-studded bow now on our Friend Memorial Library:
There also are these “shamrocks” on the local road poster:
Four-leaf clovers are genetic and/or environmental deviates. The traditional plant shown in Irish coinage and other official depictions has three leaves or, perhaps more accurately, has a leaf divided into three lobes. The unsubstantiated (but widely believed) legend about St. Patrick tells of him using the shamrock as a preaching metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity.
The second peeve is the advertisements for “true” and “real” shamrocks, with or without an “Irish” adjective. There is no single species of plant that is the real deal when it comes to shamrocks. No one really knows what a shamrock is, according to a well-researched article in Smithsonian Magazine by Bess Lovejoy. Most of the following information comes from that article.
The name “shamrock” apparently is a derivative of the Gaelic “seam óg,” meaning “little clover.” But, there are numerous actual “clover” (Trifolium) species and other non-clover species that are sold as shamrocks.
To determine what Irish people considered to be real shamrocks, a taxonomist in the Irish National Botanic Gardens used the national press to ask the Irish people to send him samples of plants that they considered to be “real” shamrocks.
Of the resulting 243 samples sent to the scientist, 46 percent were yellow clover (Trifolium dubium), 35 percent were white clover (T. repens), 7 percent were black medick (Medicago lupulina), 5 percent were wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella), and 4 percent were red clover (T. pratense). (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on March 16, 2022.)