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• Trifolium repens is the scientific name for genuine lucky clovers, which usually have three leaves but can sometimes mutate and grow additional leaves.

•There are copycat plants that resemble the four-leaf clover, including water clover, pepperwort and oxalis, all of which have four leaves and could pass as the lucky variety.

•So-called four-leaf clovers can often have many more leaves than four when mutated. In 2009, Shigeo Obara found a clover with a whopping 56 leaves, the most ever recorded.

•For the pagan Celts, each leaf of a four-leaf clover had significance. The first leaf symbolized fame, the second stands for wealth, the third was love and the fourth brought health. Other Irish legends say that finding a clover with five leaves brings money, six brings fame and seven means you’ll have a long life.

•As Christianity became the dominant organized religion in the global West, the four leaves of a “lucky” clover came to represent Christian virtues of hope, faith, charity and luck.

•The Guinness World Record holder for the largest four-leaf clover collection is Gabriella Gerhardt, who set a record of 118,791 clovers on Feb. 25, 2023. Gerhardt also holds world records for most fourleaf clovers found in one hour (451) and the most four-leaf clovers found in eight hours (887).

•A study by Swiss researchers found the odds of collecting a four-leaf clover is around one in 5,000. Four-leaf clovers are so rare because every cell in a clover has four chromosome copies. Therefore, for the mutation to occur, each chromosome copy must contain the four-leaf genetic trait, as the gene is recessive.

•President Abraham Lincoln reportedly carried a four-leaf clover everywhere (except, perhaps, the Ford’s Theatre on April 15, 1865).