• applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    My ex has the ability to find 4 and higher leaf clovers just by looking at a patch of clover. She would walk up to a patch of grass, take one look, and pick up a 4 leaf. She semiregularly found 5 leafs. It was easy for her. She once found a 6 or 7 leaf clover, or maybe 9, I forget which, she showed it to me pressed in a book. I wish I had a picture to show off but she was so good at it it became mundane, like “oh, yeah theres 4 and 5 leaf clovers all over the place”. That episode of Futurama where Fry found a 7 leaf clover was meant to be ridiculous but she really had one, and according to her she found more and didn’t keep them cause why would you when you can just find another.

    • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I’m exactly the same! When I was a kid I’d be running through the yard, stop and go back a few feet and pick up a 4 leaf clover. That’s how much the pattern sticks out to me.

      I could tell someone I was going to look for a 4 leaf clover, find one within seconds, and when I reached down to pick it up I’d often see others nearby and end up picking 5 or 6 within arms reach.

      I found an 11 leaf clover. It had 7 big leaves 4 small ones in the center but I never knew if clovers with those small leaves really counted.

      I’m not sure I’m still as good at it now, I don’t look down as much,and my yard doesn’t have much clover. But I was somewhere else this weekend walking through the grass and happened to glance down straight at this 4 leafer.

      picture of a 4 leaf clover

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        1 day ago

        As a kid on the recess playground, we had about a week long trend of looking for 4 leaf clovers. We’d run out at recess, find a clover patch, plop down and started searching. The teachers must have enjoyed that quiet week.

        There was another week or two that everyone got into yo-yos, and 3/4 of the class were yo-yoing at recess. Then there were the click-clacks, until they got banned, and also the thing that spun around your ankle and you jumped over it with your other foot. The teachers must have thought we were nuts.

        Jump ropes were a constant, not a fad.

  • sqw
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    1 day ago

    i’m looking over a five-leaf clover that i overlooked be-fiiive

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Are those rare? Some say finding a 4 leaf clover means luck, but AFAIK 4 leaf clover is the most common.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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      2 days ago

      Clovers usually only have 3 leaves. The probability of clover naturally having 4 leaves is 1 in 5000. But it’s also a genetic thing, so they can be bred to have more leaves. The world record for most leaves on a clover was achieved through cross/selective breeding.

    • kernelle@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      2 days ago

      Wikipedia puts them at 1/29390 and 4 leafs at 1/5000. An extra leaf is the result of a genetic mutation of the plant. I’m assuming here, but I think it’s the same mutation that happened twice.

      Hopefully someone actual plant knowledge will stop by to enlighten us!

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Thanks, I looked it up, and regarding the 4 leaf clover it checks out. I just remember as a child I seemed to find mostly 4 leaf, but it was probably just childish imagination, 1 leaf kind of has 2 parts, so I probably in my childish imagination thought I found 4 leaf clovers all over the place.
        The curse of having memories from before I was 4 years old.

        • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          The leaves do sometimes split apart in the middle so you have to make sure they’re not 2 leaves and 2 halves.

        • kernelle@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          2 days ago

          I’ve seen cloverpatches in the wild with a variety that produces almost exclusively 4 leaved ones. They look a little different than your average clovers but you might have seen those! Either way childhood memories are fickle.

          In my childhood we’d hunt 4 leaf clovers for days, only found a handful of them and never seen one with 5 leafs!

    • backalleycoyote@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      When I was in high school our math teacher took us out to the corner of the school property to count cars for a real life statistics lesson. The lawn was covered in clover and she offered extra credit to anyone who found a four-leaf clover. That’s the day she discovered four-leaf clovers aren’t that uncommon.