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It's March, the month of lucky charms. One very symbolic charm is the shamrock, a three-leaved clover-like plant often found in fields, lawns and ornamental flower pots. It is more accurately named "false shamrock," or Oxsalis stricta, and is a member of the wood sorrel family.
Its leaves consist of three smooth, heart-shaped leaflets which give it an appearance similar to clover. Its yellow flowers have five petals which give way to fruit capsules containing brown torpedo-shaped seeds. Each plant can produce approximately 5000 seeds per year which can be expelled up to 16 feet from the parent plant, making this an unlucky plant for home gardeners who prefer not to spend their days weeding.
There are other species of Oxalis cultivated and sold this time of year as the "lucky plant," an ornamental house plant with large, showy flowers. These are the many varieties of Oxalis purpurea. However, buyer beware! Avoid common species of wood sorrel, such as the Florida yellow wood sorrel, the creeping wood sorrel and other sorrel weeds known to limit the growth rates of ornamental plants. More importantly, Oxalis plants contain oxalic acid which, if ingested in large quantities, can be poisonous.
There are several clover plants considered to be the "true shamrock" plants. Most notably is the white clover or Trifolium repens. The three leaflets of white clover are a deep-green color, oval-shaped and have a thin white V-shaped mark at the base of the leaflet. There is a 1 in 10,000 chance that a plant may produce the "lucky" four leaf clover. The plant is a low-growing, clumping, ground cover with a white flower growing 4-6 inches in height. Be careful to not confuse white clover with the highly invasive Florida pusley plant. The pusley has pointed green leaves and tiny white star-shaped flowers. While not a clover, it is sometimes called Florida Snow or Mexican Clover.
White clover is a very desirable plant for many reasons. For people, white clover leaves can be eaten raw or cooked like spinach. Its leaves can be dried for tea or added to cakes giving them a vanilla flavor. Flowers and seeds can be dried and ground into a flour or a seasoning on cooked foods. (Note: Clover should not be picked and consumed from fields treated with herbicides or pesticides.)
White clover is more typically known as a highly nutritious foraging crop for cows, but is also an important nectar plant for bees and is the host plant for the Clouded Sulfur butterfly. In addition, white clover is a legume and as such is a nitrogen fixer. Nitrogen fixing plants add usable nitrogen to the soil creating less need for supplemental applied nitrogen, thereby helping to protect our groundwater from nitrogen overload. In fact, through nitrogen fixing white clover can add up to 130 pounds of nitrogen per acre, saving farmers time and money in added fertilizer costs. For this reason, white clover as well as other clover varieties are often used by farmers and gardeners as a cover crop between vegetable gardening cycles.
Historically, white clover seeds were added to lawn seed mixtures to provide for a natural source of nitrogen and minerals. Its clumping growth habit also limits weed growth making it a beneficial addition to the lawn. The proliferation of chemical lawn treatments supplanted the use of mixed-seed turf in favor of the more uniform, suburban, lawn-predominant landscape. White clover mixed with other grasses is a more organic alternative if you are looking to limit the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemically added fertilizers to your landscape.
Although sometimes unfairly considered a weed, white clover is a very lucky plant to include in your landscape. A gardener with a keen eye will identify the imposters, root them out and benefit from the luck of the "true shamrock."
Happy gardening!
Deborah Haggett is a Lee County Master Gardener Volunteer and a member of the Garden Club of Cape Coral. Visit us at www.gardenclubofcapecoral.com
Sources:
White Clover: Trifolium repens
Credit: UF/IFAS
Oxalis Stricta
Credit: Chris Marble UF/IFAS
References
Gammon, K. (2017, March 16). Shamrock Science: St. Patrick's Day Symbol Versus the Four-Leaf Clover. Inside Science. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.insidescience.org/news/shamrock-science-st-patricks-day-symbol-versus-four-leaf-clover
Lollar, M. C., & Marble, S. C. (2022, February 7). ENH1253/EP514: Biology and Management of Oxalis (Oxalis stricta) in Ornamental Crop Production. UF/IFAS. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/EP514
Trifolium repens (Clover, Dutch Clover, Ladino Clover, Purple Dutch Clover, Shamrock, White Clover) | North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. (n.d.). NC State Cooperative Extension. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/trifolium-repens/
White, A. (2020, November 2). Clover Lawns: The Benefits and How Clover Went Out of Style. Lawnstarter. https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/lawn-care-2/were-thinking-over-why-we-kill-clover/#:%7E:text=Here's%20the%20short%20answer%3A%20Clover,t%20always%20considered%20a%20weed.&text=Clovers%20%E2%80%94%20specifically%20Trifolium%20repens%20%E2%80%94%20have,peas%2C%20beans%2C%20and%20peanuts