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From: leeds@cfa250.harvard.EDU (Paul Martenis)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: 4- and 5- leaved clovers: evidence for environmental disturbance?
Message-ID: <628@cfa203.cfa250.harvard.EDU>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 09:53:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: cfa203.628
Posted: Mon Sep 28 09:53:43 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Sep-87 04:26:45 EDT
References: <4066@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Organization: Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
Lines: 22

in article <4066@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu (David Palmer) says:
> In article <1341@vanhalen.rutgers.edu> pratt@vanhalen.rutgers.edu (Lorien Y. Pratt) writes:
>>Hmm...Just now on my way past our "Stern Physics Laboratory" here at
>>Rutgers, within the space of 30 seconds I found one 4- and two 5-leaved
>>clovers.  This got me to thinking about how once somebody told me that
>>such mutations (?) were evidence of impurities in the environment,
>>perhaps radiation.  Is this true?  I know that we can conclude a lot
>>about the environment from studying animal populations.  Is there any
>>evidence that a layman can recognize (like these clovers perhaps)
>>for environmental disturbances?
> 
> The existence of multiple 4-leafed clovers may mean that at one time
> there was a single 4-leafed clover in that spot, and it reproduced.
> I once found a patch with literally hundreds of four and five leaf
> clovers in a few square meters.

My dad grew up on a farm in Maryland (c. 1940) where he says he used to find
handfuls of four-leafed clovers.  Given the time, I don't think it was due to
human tampering.
-- 
						- Paul Martenis
						  Cambridge, MA