“I know I’ve got Irish blood because I wake up every morning with a hangover,” explained Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher. Some 28%, or over nine million Canadians claim Irish ancestry. And 17th March falls on a Sunday this year, making it more amenable for the wearin’ of the green, parading and partaking of copious libations to the blessed St. Patrick, who is believed to have died on this day in 461 A.D.
Legend has it that St. Patrick chose the native three-leaved shamrock to represent the trinity while preaching. The love everything green also is said the stem from the plant: clothes, hats, eating green food and even imbibing green-dyed beer. Strangely though St. Patrick’s vestments were blue.
Now take a good gulp of Guinness – there is no such plant as the shamrock.
While the Irish Embassy in Ottawa – a city with strong Irish antecedents – declines to comment, botanists agree there simply isn’t any such species.
Possibly St. Patrick – a British slave trader incidentally whose parents were Roman tax collectors – used a leaf of clover to symbolize the holy trinity. Roy Vickery, who extensively researched the subject –
A Dictionary of Plant Lore (Oxford University Press 1995) by him is a fertile source of this and similar subjects – notes the Irish for ‘little clover’ is
seamroge. It first appeared in print in 1571 as shamrote. A century later it was noted being worn on St. Patrick’s Day. Vickery quotes extensive research that would indicate that yellow trefoil followed by white clover is the plant chosen as ‘shamrock’ in Ireland.
Roger Hyman and Richard Pankhurst in their
Plants and Their Names: A Concise Dictionary, list shamrock as
Trifolium repens – in other words, clover. A. B. Graf in his exhaustive bible of decorative plants, Exotica, agrees with the identification.
While for many years canny Dutch seeds merchants offered “specially selected” clover seed as shamrock to be commercial raised for the lead-up to 17th March, what is displayed in supermarkets and florists is likely to be a form of
Oxalis, most likely
O. tetraphylla. These small bulbous perennials have no Hibernian connections but originated in Mexico. Keep the pots out of direct sun and the soil moist but not wet until late spring. In the garden they look well as edging in shaded planters where they will produce abundant white flowers over the bright green foliage.
There are many other attractive variations of Oxalis, which over 500 identified species and not a few hybrids. For some time now the Canadian firm of
Gardenimport has offered several named selections of the Brazilian O. triangularis, mostly with pink flowers over foliage varying from green through purple. They make excellent houseplants or again, planted as edging in shaded patio containers. Casual visitors will doubtlessly call them ‘shamrock’ also.
This will, however, ensure ample foliage for wearing in lapel or hat. It is customary at the evening’s end to “drown the shamrock,” placing it in the final drink. When that glass is emptied, the shamrock is thrown over the left shoulder.
