Irish Luck

On a gray,wet and cool Sunday, I did not want to drive around Miami shooting pictures. Instead, I spent the time to improve my luck for the day, looking for a Four-leaf clover. No such luck. There is plenty of the regular, unlucky type in my back yard, most of them are flowering this time. Found none of the lucky type, I looked up some facts to make this worth your time:

Correction: Tog with this correction...

THIS IS NOT Clover (Trifolium), or trefoil, is a genus of about 300 species of plants in the pea family (Fabaceae.) The scientific name derives from the Latin tres, "three", and folium, "leaf", so called from the characteristic form of the leaf, which has three leaflets (trifoliate); hence the popular name trefoil. No wonder it's impossible to find a four leaf kind today. It would have been named Quadfolium then. Please don't look up that word on the internet, it's not what you think.

BUT IT IS Oxalis Articulata (Pink-sorrel) which is the largest genus in the wood sorrel family Oxalidaceae. Of the approximately 900 known species in the Oxalidaceae, 800 belong to Oxalis. Many of the species are known as Wood Sorrel or Woodsorrel.

The majority of species have three leaflets; in these species, the leaves are superficially similar to those of some clovers, though clovers differ in having the leaflets not in a whorl, and of unequal size with two smaller side leaflets and one larger central leaflet.

Thanks Tog!