Of Shamrocks

It started last night. All of a sudden the ads here on our cherished Bloggerparty started sporting greenery. The infamous shamrock (Irish Gaelic seamrag) that is almost as prevalent a symbol of St. Patrick's Day in these United States as green beer. Hell, today, March 17th, 2006 of the Common Era, even the logo of Our Beloved Sponsor and Benefactor, Google, is smothered in them. Now, you would think, as a person with some botanical training and vague intimations of being Irish, that I would be able to tell you about the identity and natural history of the shamrock. But there's a problem.

It started some years ago, when some smart retailer got it into his (I think) head to put a fast-growing plant with trifoliate leaves (more about this in a minute) in pots and sell it as the Irish shamrock. He must have made a few punts out of the deal. I mean, I bought one. Only to find out that the plant belonged to a species that does not grow in Ireland. This shamrock was a sham. I have always wondered what a sham rock would look like. Moving right along ...

Well, thereby hangs the tale. According to Legend, our most trusted source of factual information in history and modern times alike, St. Patrick used to illustrate the concept of the Trinity (in pre-PC times, this was Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - I think it's supposed to be Creator, Christ, and Great Spirit now, or something like that) by holding up a leaf that had three parts to it. A tri(three)foliate(leaf blade) leaf. A shamrock. But there are many kinds of plants that have trifoliate leaves. Which one was it?

A clover? After all, botanists consider clover to be kind of the example of plants with trifoliate leaves. Even its scientific name is Trifolium, for crying out loud. Trifolium species are common in Ireland, they are welcome in grazing pastures and their white flower heads produce the principal ingredient of clover honey, one of the more choice types. But there are lots of species of Trifolium, and none of them have heart-shaped leaflets or are particularly good as salad greens. Both of these features are mentioned in early manuscripts describing the shamrock. So maybe it wasn't a clover.

Was it a sorrel then? Sorrels (genus Oxalis) have trifoliate leaves (some of them anyway), and some, like the wood sorrel, are considered tasty enough to be included in salads. But you have to be careful about sorrels - there are lots of kinds of these, too, and they're not all tasty. In fact, Oxalis species are the original source of oxalic acid, which exists in plants as a means of defense against creatures like bugs, sheep and humans using them as salad greens. Oxalic acid provides the sour in sour wood sorrel, the dumb in dumb cane, and the corpse in rhubarb (if you eat any other part of the plant than the leaf stalk).

Of course, it's quite possible that St. Patrick didn't give a Hail Mary about all this. Apparently the pre-Christian Irish didn't either, there's no evidence that they saw any one seamrag as different from any other. All that "what kind is it really" came later, with silly tree-huggers and hair-splitters like me. To St. Patrick, it was a leaf with three parts. It was clearly planted there in heathen Ireland as a sign that God was St. Patrick's Beloved Sponsor and Benefactor. And that was all that mattered.

Of course, St. Patrick and Ireland didn't have to worry about another plant with trifoliate leaves. The one in America that spawned the warning phrase "Leaflets three, let it be." Not Trifolium or Oxalis, but Toxicodendron (or Rhus, depending on which expert you read). Poison ivy. Now that would have been a conversion experience.

For a bit more on the search for the true shamrock, go here.

  - O Ceallaigh

Copyright © 2006 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.

All opinions are mine as a private citizen.