FLO WERS OF HISTOR Y. 45 l 



Many other trees and flowers have from time to 

 time been associated, historically, with events which 

 have transpired in this country ; but Boscobel Oak 

 and Glastonbury thorn, and such mementoes must be 

 passed over, as our limits are reached, and we must 

 hasten to the final page. 



There has been continued controversy as to the 

 plant with three leaflets which furnished St Patrick 

 with his familiar illustration of the doctrine of the 

 Trinity. Some have affirmed that this, the Irish sham- 

 rock, is the plant we call wood-sorrel, 1 whilst others, 

 with whom most Irishmen agree, maintain that it is the 

 white clover. 3 The visit of the saint to the Emerald 

 Isle is supposed to have taken place about the year 

 433, whereas the white clover is of comparatively 

 recent introduction into Ireland, so that it could not 

 have been that plant which apparently was so ready 

 at hand to illustrate the saint's discourse. In Mori- 

 son's history, written at the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century, it is said that " the Irish willingly 

 eat the herb shamrock, being of a sharp taste, which 

 they snatch out of the ditches. 3 This description, 

 however applicable it may be to the wood-sorrel, is 

 not equally so to the white clover. The Irish sham- 



1 Oxalis acetosella. 2 Trifolium repens. 



3 Fynis Morison's " History of the Civil Wars in Ireland, 

 between 1599 and 1603." 



2 G 2 



