Democrat and Chronicle (2024)

The natural world is full of objects we associate with good luck.

Falling stars. Rainbows. Crickets.

But the most accessible might be right under our feet.

Four-leaf clovers have long been tied to the myth of good fortune.

Or, as Sandra Wayman found out this summer, the reality.

The Ontario, Wayne County, native has a knack for finding four-leaf clovers. Spending this summer and fall as a field hand at a Geneva vegetable research farm, she has had lots of time to add to her mounting collection of hundreds of four-leafers.

After crowding a large picture frame with dozens of her little "gift(s) from the universe," she began giving them away.

The clover she offered a stranger this summer reaped an incredibly rare stroke of luck.

On July 4, Wayman pedaled about 50 miles from Geneva to Rochester to watch the fireworks with friends. The next morning, she rode her bicycle to the Rochester Public Market. After a little shopping, she returned to the gate where she had locked her bike. It was gone.

"This bike is everything. It has gone 14,000 miles. I go exploring on it, I've gotten to class on it, I go to work on it," says Wayman.

And by exploring, she means extended tours of Southeast Asia and Puerto Rico.

After filing a report with the police, she trudged downtown with her despondence to get a cup of coffee. She had been told not to get her hopes up about recovering the bike.

At Fuego Coffee Roasters she found Rochester Police Department Officer Michael Murphy in the middle of a double shift, telling co-owner Tony Colon about the embarrassing spill he took on his bike the night before while patrolling July 4 festivities.

The gregarious Wayman wedged her way into the conversation and shared her two-wheeled tale of woe, showing the Rochester cop a cellphone picture from her Southeast Asian trip: a sturdy blue bike with bright green handlebars, flanked by curious Cambodian kids.

Murphy was impressed by the mileage and fervor. Wayman gave him a clover before he left the cafe to get on with his double shift.

Murphy and his partner had a little extra time, so they began weaving their way around the Rochester Public Market in their patrol car in wider and wider circles. Within an hour, he spied the electric green handlebars. The bike was alone and practically "on display" on a street corner. Murphy pulled up the report filed earlier that day, and called Wayman to identify key accessories. By the end of the afternoon, bicycle and cyclist were reunited.

"I have never been able to locate a stolen bike that fast. Never," says Murphy. "I pulled my wallet out while she was thanking me and showed her the clover. I told her that I think it was because of (the four-leaf clover)."

Science has not yet backed up claims that four-leaf clovers attract luck, but a study published in the journal Crop Science in 2010 offers some theories on why four-leaf clovers happen in the first place.

Using genetic markers, the University of Georgia research team discovered the gene which causes the common white clover, other Trifolium repens, to grow a fourth leaf. (That fourth leaf, incidentally, is usually smaller than the other three.) They believe that fourth leaf is usually suppressed by the gene that dictates the species' three-leaf tendency. Environmental factors could also determine whether that fourth-leaf gene is expressed.

In any case, it's estimated that four-leafed white clovers happen once every 10,000 clovers, though Cornell University entomology graduate student Tessa Lessord has found that where one four-leaf clover exists, others are usually not far away.

Like Wayman, Lessord has developed a knack for finding four-leafers.

"My co-workers make fun of me because I see them all the time," she says. This year alone, she's probably picked at least 200 while working in apple orchards at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva this summer. "I believe anyone can learn how to find them."

The secret is to look for irregularities in patterns as your eye scans the ground, she says. Scan quickly, don't waste your time checking each individual clover.

A video by ScientificAmerican.com explains that you don't have to cover much ground to up your odds. In a typical clover field, an area of 1.2 square meters, about the surface dimensions of an average office desk, will have about 10,000 white clover plants.

It's unclear where or when the association between four-leaf clovers and luck began, but Father William Graf, chairman of the religious studies department at St. John Fisher College, likes to set the record straight on at least one aspect of its reputation.

"The four-leaf clover has no religious significance in Irish history," he says, explaining that the Irish shamrock has only three leaves, symbolizing the Christian trilogy of father, son and holy spirit.

If anything, the Irish probably would prefer not to think about four-leaf clovers at all. At one point "the English accused the Irish of eating four-leaf clovers," Graf said.

President Obama added embarrassment to insult in 2012, when merchandise for his St. Patrick's Day re-election campaign mistakenly pictured an Irish shamrock with an extra leaf.

Wayman and Lessord have different takes on the luck associated with four-leaf clovers.

"I had a friend who told me once that being lucky is a talent," says Wayman. "That's true in a way because it's about being open to things and looking for possibilities and saying yes a lot."

Lessord, meanwhile, associates luck with confidence that comes with practice. Clover-hunting has in part helped build her confidence in other arenas of her life.

Talent and practice were obviously part of the 14-fold tidal wave of good fortune experienced by Shigeo Obara of Japan. The former food crop researcher devoted more than 50 years crossbreeding clovers in his garden. In 2009, he set a new world record by growing a white clover with 56 leaves. This broke his previous world record of growing a 21-leaf clover.

His luck was inevitably short-lived. Obara died the following year.

He was, however, 85.

KMILTNER@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/KarenMiltner