50 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Slimmer. In rich soils it grows a foot or two in height, but varifs greatly in luxuriance 

 according to the situation, and is only an inch or less above tlie suiface of the gi'ound, 

 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 is a 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 

 liigher 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 

 aTid legends. The Irish names for TrifoUum repens are Shamrock, Shamrog, or Sea 

 Muroge ; and some botanists claim for it priority as the national emblem of Ireland. 

 Some coTitend for the Oxalis aceiosella (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 I.sle, 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 — 



" I'll .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 intei-esting study in itself as the type of the family 

 to which it belongs. No class of plants afibrds such evident and interesting examples 

 of the law of morphology as do the Leguminosse. 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 tlie stamens, petals, and 



