A woman has claimed she might just be the “luckiest person in the UK” after stumbling upon an extraordinary find near her home. She took to Reddit to share a photo of a freshly-picked cluster of four-leaf clovers, which she says came directly from her garden.
These rare plants are a variation of the typical three-leaf variety and are estimated to occur only once in every 5,000, based on studies. However, there’s ongoing debate about whether the fourth leaf is a result of genetic mutation or environmental factors.
Curious Redditors were quick to engage, with one asking: “How do you find so many at once? I spent ages one afternoon looking in the garden as a child and I only found one. Did manage to find a five leaf clover as well though.”
The woman responded with her personal story. “This is gonna sound weird but things have been kinda tough for me these past few days and I kept hoping to find one as a sign things will be okay,” she said. “Walking to the bus stop today and I find one, the biggest one and think ‘wherever there’s one, there’s usually another’ and then boom – they just started showing up. I counted about 26 in total.”
Another commenter, astounded by the haul, remarked: “You’re about 6% on your way to beating to world record for most found in an hour. The world record for number of 4-leaf clovers collected in one hour by an individual is 451.” With her newfound luck, other Reddit suggested ways she could make the most of it. “Invest in shares,” recommended one, before a second urged: “Get those Euro Millions tickets on,”.
Despite not yet reaping any financial rewards from her find, the woman has noticed a few small strokes of luck. “Well so far I went to Tesco and my favourite sandwich was reduced to £1.30 so I got that going for me,” she joked. She then shared another minor piece of good fortune: “Today I made mac n cheese for dinner and it’s the best mac n cheese I ever made. Everything went perfectly. Seems I still have some luck.”
According to BBC Science Focus, human chromosomes come in matched pairs, while clovers have four copies of each chromosome per cell. The gene responsible for four-leaf clovers is ‘recessive’, meaning the plant will only produce four leaves if it has the four-leaf gene on all four chromosomes, which is rare.
“Even then, environmental conditions such as temperature and soil acidity will also have an impact on whether the four leaves develop.”