nichepoetryandprose

How are the giant statue of a Canada goose at WAWA, Ontario, and the roadside plant White Clover associated?  Read on…

the giant statue of a Canada goose at Wawa, Ontario

White Clover is a common perennial herb of fields, lawns and roadsides.  The plant is also called White Clover or, in French, trèfle blanc.  Flowers are borne in globular heads, pure white or tinged with pink.  The name Trifolium is from tres meaning three and folium meaning leaf.  Repens means creeping, a reference to the long, prostrate stems.

The leaves of clover are in threes, palmately compound, and are occasionally found in fours.  According to superstition, finding a four-leaved clover gives good luck to the finder.  In the 1960’s, my Dad found a five-leaved clover in the grassy field in front of the giant statue of the Canada goose at WAWA, Ontario.

the five-leaved clover my Dad found on the lawn in front of the Canada goose at Wawa almost 45 years ago

Dad pressed the leaves and covered them in a laminating film.  The pressed plant is still among my treasures.

the reverse side of the specimen of five-leaved clover, with my Dad’s printing

We returned in 2002 and searched, but the three-leaved variety was all we found.

we searched in 2002, but I think the lawn had been replaced

Clover is a useful plant.  It ‘fixes nitrogen’, meaning it takes nitrogen from the atmosphere and introduces it into the soil as it grows.  The flowers are a source of honey for bees, and I’ve tasted honey made from an infusion of clover flowers.  Dried leaves can be used for making tea.

Have you ever found a clover leaf with more than three leaflets?  Did it bring you luck?

White Clover

Trifolium repens L.

(Three Leaves and Wishes)

~

only to lie

sweet dreaming in the clover

to pull blossoms

from long stems

toss soft snowballs

at blue-bottle flies

~

bees to visit me

florets for nectar

hair splashed on the clover

scented sweet honey

~

to search three leaves for four

creeping across the lawn

to the roadside

to roll in the fields

of white clover

trèfle blanc

blushing

~

© Jane Tims   2005