56 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
summer. In rich soils it grows a foot or two in height, but varies greatly in luxuriance 
according to the situation, and is only an inch or less above the surface of the ground, 
becoming almost woven in with the thick short grass that forms the natural carpet of 
our downs and commons. Its chief value in cultivation is as a pasture plant ; and so 
quickly does it grow that Mr. Curtis affirms that a single seedling covered more than a 
square yard of ground in a single summer. It does not seem to be ascertained when 
White Clover or Trefoil first became cultivated in this country, but it appears to have 
been of late date, for it is not mentioned by Gerarde, Parkinson, or Ray as an agricul- 
tural plant in this country, nor by any of the writers of the 17th century. Gerarde, 
however, says that “there isa Trefoil of this kind which is sowne in fields of the low 
countries in Italy, and divers other places beyond the seas, that comes up ranker and 
higher than that which groweth in medows, and is an excellent food for cattell, both to 
fatten them and cause them to give good store of milk.” Sheep thrive well upon this 
little plant, and there are seldom any moors or meadows where it is not to be found. 
Even in the midst of London fogs and dark December weather we have discovered this 
little plant of the way-side, nestling under the shadow of a wall in a city garden, 
waiting for the warm days of spring to beam forth, invigorating its tiny leaves, and 
bringing forth its little white blossoms, which are then in unseen preparation. 
The common plants of a country are almost universally associated with its songs 
and legends. The Irish names for Z’rifoliwm repens are Shamrock, Shamrog, or Sea 
Muroge ; and some botanists claim for it priority as the national emblem of Ireland. 
Some contend for the Oxalis acetosella (wood sorrel) ; while others maintain that the 
white clover was the favoured plant of St. Patrick, who when he was preaching the 
Gospel in the earliest times to the benighted inhabitants of the Emerald Isle, chose to 
illustrate the great doctrine of the Trinity by the simple instance of a triune nature 
in this well-known and beautiful leaf. We incline, as we have expresed before when 
writing of the Oxalis, to believe that it was this plant, and not the White Clover, which 
was the original Trefoil of Ireland ; for our little plant does not arrive at perfection 
until considerably after St. Patrick’s Day. The national emblem and the spirit of the 
institution is, however, equally preserved in either plant, and we may take the term 
Shamrock as applicable to all trefoils or threeparted-leaved plants. The “ Irish 
Hudibras ” says— : 
* Within a wood near to this place 
There grows a bunch of three-leaved grass, 
Called by the boglanders sham rogues, 
A present for the queen of shoges ” (spirits). 
In all ages a sort of mystic reverence has surrounded the notion of a Trinity, and 
this idea seems embodied by the imaginative and poetical Irish in the triple leaflet. 
Whenever this sacred leaf is found to depart from its usual form and to produce four 
leaflets, its mystic power is said to be greatly enhanced, and all sorts of spells are sup- 
posed to be worked with its enchantments. The old song— 
“Tl seek a four-leaved shamrock in all the fairy dells,” 
tells of the wonders to be accomplished by it when found. 
The White Clover forms a.very interesting study in itself as the type of the family 
to which.it belongs. No class of plants affords such evident and interesting examples 
of the law of morphology as do the Leguminose. In the White Clover we frequently 
meet with cases in which parts of the flower exhibit a tendency to return to their leafy 
origin ; the pod frequently changes into a small leaf, whilst the stamens, petals, and 
