138 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



pasture plants. Shakespeare gives the word as " triffoly," 

 and other old writers have " trifolie/' and other slight 

 deviations from the root-word. In some old herbals it is 

 the " triafoliola." The other familiar name, clover, has two 

 distinct derivations accorded to it, and either is so far in- 

 teresting that one can only regret that a second should 

 arise to throw a shade of doubt upon the first. " How 

 happy could I be with either, were t'other dear charmer 

 away/' to quote a well-known line from perhaps a less well- 

 known source, the f< Beggar's Opera "of John Gay. The plant 

 was by the Anglo-Saxons called " cloeferwort/' on account 

 of its deeply-cleft leaves ; and as the Anglo-Saxon words, 

 though they vary to "ckefer " and "clcefra," still keep closely 

 in sound and sense to the one we have first quoted, we may 

 be well content to see in these the origin of our modern word. 

 Prior, on the other hand, in his excellent work on the popular 

 names of British plants, finds a significance in the Latin 

 word clava, a cudgel or club, though in what respect the 

 plant resembles a club he does not mention. Granting, 

 however, this foundation, which he supports by a reference 

 to the " clava trinodis," or three-knotted club of Hercules, 

 he indicates the curious fact that our " clubs " in playing- 

 cards are trefoils in form. Those who find themselves still 

 open to a third theory, may perhaps accept the fact that the 

 plant, often called Dutch clover, is largely cultivated among 

 us, and that the seed is chiefly imported from Holland, in 

 which country the plant is called Maver. The red clover 

 was first introduced into notice as a fodder plant by Sir 

 Richard Western, our ambassador to the Low Countries, 

 in the year 1645, but it seems to have been long received 

 with but little favour; thus, in turning to Martyn's 

 "Flora Itustica," published in 171)2, we find the following 



