IVifolmm.] LEaUMINOSJE. 87 



8. T. repens Linn. — I>utch Clover; Shamrock. 



Hihernici SeaTnii65 {8ham-r5ge). 



Districts I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. 



Lat. 51^°-55i°. Througliout Ireland. Type, British. 



Meadows and pastures ; common. Fl. May-September. 



Sea-level in Deny and S. Cork. To 1450 ft. in Derry {Hart) ; 

 to 1550 ft. in SHgo {B.SfV.); to 1700 ft. in Tipperaiy and to 1660 

 ft. in Kerry {Hart). 



This species of clover is the one most generally worn as the 

 shamrock or Irish national badge on St. Patrick's Day, I7th March, 

 though T. minus is used very frequently and T. pratense and 

 Medicago IttpuUna, occasionally, for the same purpose. Edward 

 Lhwyd, the celebrated antiquary, one of the earliest investigators of 

 the Irish flora, writing to Tancred Eobinson in December 1699 after 

 a recent visit to Ireland, says: "Their Shamrug is the common 

 ■clover" {Phil. Trans, vol. sy, p. 303). Caleb Threlkeld ia his 

 Synopsis of native Irish plants, published in 1727, gives Seamar- 

 oge — "Young Trefoil" — as the Irish name for T. pratense album, 

 and says expressly that this is the plant worn by the people in their 

 hats on St. Patrick's Day. K'Eogh in his Botaniea Universalis 

 Hibernioa, 1735, and "Wade in his Catalogue of the indigenous 

 plants of the Co. Dublin, 1794, both identify the national badge 

 with the same species, T. repens. Recent inquiry, however, shows 

 that T. repens is far from having an exclusive claim to be considered 

 the national badge of Ireland. Out of a number of specimens of 

 •certified "shaiorooks" collected by N. C. in the years 1892 and 

 1893 from various Irish counties, 24 -were found to belong to T. 

 repens and 21 to T. minus {Ir. Nat. i8g2, p. 95 and iSg^, p. sof), 

 and in Britten and Holland's Bictiona/ry of English Plant Names, 

 1886, the latter species is recorded as used in 13 Irish counties. 



9. T. fragiferum Linn. — Stra/wberry-headed Trefoil. 



Districts I. II. _ IV. V. — — — IX. — — — 

 Lat. 52i°-54i°. South and East. Type, EngKsh. 



Lowland. Damp pastures, mostly near the sea ; rare and local. 

 Fl. July-September. 



I. By the coast near Feohanagh, west of the Dingle promontory, 

 Kerry: Ha/rt 1884. Castlegregory ; Barrow; Banna; Bally- 

 bunnion, &c. : R. W. 8. 1888, Sfe. Beal Point and Tralee Bay : 



