You ’re out for a promenade and distinguish a patch of trefoil . As you skim the plant life , you notice one that ’s a fiddling different . Instead of three leaves , this one has four – it ’s a luckyfour - leaf trefoil !
A four - leaf trefoil , agree to superstition , is a lucky spell that can ward off evil , help you meet a future dearest , contribute you good fortune and leave you to see fairies . Its individual leaves are believe to represent faith , promise , love and hazard . With all this good pack into one lilliputian fiddling works , it ’s high-pitched time you figure out how to get hold more , correct ?
First , you ’ll need to acknowledge the species for which to look . The four - leaf trefoil sprouts from theTrifolium repensplant , normally known as the white clover . And those four leaves ? They are n’t actually separate at all , butleaflets , four parts of a single foliage . One part of the leaflet is always smaller than the other three .
So how can you increase your odds of finding a four - leafage clover ? get ’s crunch some numbers and find out . In general , a patch of clover will produce a four - leafage clover at a rate of one in 10,000 . And , because a distinctive clover outdoor stage curb 10,000 plant in virtually 13 square understructure ( 1.2 square cadence ) , usually you ’ll need to read an area about the size of it of an office desk to discover a four - folio clover [ source : Olson ] .
But do n’t plan to count each leaf in the integral clover fleck . That would take a really long time . or else , take a more passive approach by incite your eyes over the patch and waiting for an freakishness to catch your middle . While this may not seem like it would be more effective than intently wait at each leafage , studies show that it is . In one study , radiologists were shown mammograms for one - fifth of a 2d and then ask which one showed a tumor . While they were n’t actually give enough time to entirely scan each effigy , they often were still able to name which mammogram was different [ source : Olson ] .
If you ’ve been wonder how a four - leaf clover occurs , thank investigator at the University of Georgia . In 2010 , they discovered the gene responsible for for producing four - folio trefoil . It ’s located in a specific region of the white clover genome , and it ’s believe that crossbreeding four - folio clovers could ensue in offspring that consistently grow a quadruple cusp [ beginning : Shearer ] .
The world record for what could be considered the luckiest clover ever is held by Shigeo Obara of Iwate , Japan . On May 10 , 2009 , Obara discovered a clover with 56 brochure . The jury is still out on whether the clover has been 14 times as prosperous as a running play - of - the - mill four - leafage clover [ reference : Guinness World Records ] .
