Shamrocks

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all you lads and lasses out there.

Shamrocks are often said to only grow in Ireland and certainly Cecil Geddis, or Dublin Ireland, would agree. This past year he shipped over 80,000 Shamrock plants from his nursery, Hoophill Nursery, all labeled "Authentic shamrock -- grown in Ireland".

Botanists tend to disagree with this. According to them Shamrocks are simply immature clover plants. While that's probably true, it's not very romantic. Folklore is far more entertaining and tradition has it that St Patrick used the Irish Shamrock to illustrate the concept of the Trinity, an essential belief of the Catholic faith.

The name "shamrock" is actually an English transliteration of the original Gaelic name for young clover, "seamra", which is pronounced shom-ruh, for clover and "og" for young.

Comments

Jean-Luc Picard said…
Tap of the morning!

Happy St Patrick's Day!
3:17 PM
Anonymous said…
:) Happy St. Paddy's Day, Dave!

Michele actually sent me today, but I would have been here anyhow.

Thanks for the botanical lesson!
3:47 PM
Canadian Mark said…
I was actually just on my way over to Wikipedia to figure that one out...thanks for saving me the trip. Michele sent me today. Happy St. Patricks day!
7:01 PM
Anonymous said…
Yes, the day when everyone is Irish! Hope you had a happy and safe one!
Peace....................
9:33 PM
ninjapoodles said…
Ah, I just came over to see the napping kitty-cat.
10:02 PM
Unique Designs from Zazzle said…
interesting post!
1:53 AM
kenju said…
Very informative. Hope you had a good day!
11:21 AM
carmilevy said…
I'm with you: the romantic notion of far more appealing to the soul than the scientific one.

I'll never look at a shamrock the same way again. Thanks for opening our eyes...as always.
1:39 PM
Anonymous said…
Like the word origin of Shamrocks. I hadn't heard that.
10:29 PM
Lois Lane said…
The folklore and entertainment was good stuff. My sister Angie and I used to lay in the grass looking for four-leaf clovers all of the time. We also got lost one St. Pat's Day while chasing the end of the rainbow. I bet we would have killed each other had we actually found a pot of gold at the end.
Lois Lane
12:14 PM
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