Are Lesser Clovers Sherlock's Lucky Shamrocks on Elementary's Pilot?

Summary: Sherlock Holmes perhaps ascertains, without asking or answering, which plants are lucky shamrocks on Elementary series episode Pilot Sept. 27, 2012.

Lesser clover (Trifolium dubium), a native European flower plant in the pea and clover family Fabaceae, is generally considered as primary plant representing the traditional Irish shamrock; village of Worowo, near Łobez County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, northwestern Poland; Saturday, July 7, 2007: I, Kenraiz (Krzysztof Ziarnek), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Lesser clovers are perhaps behind artistic appearances of a lucky shamrock on a pale green t-shirt that argues astuteness versus auspiciousness on Elementary procedural drama television series episode Pilot Sept. 27, 2012.

Director Michael Cuesta and writer Robert Doherty brandish a Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) who believes himself born brainy and brawny beyond anything based upon fortuitousness. The first season's first episode communicates congenital cleverness through the comments "I am not lucky" above and "I am good" below a colored t-shirt's four-leaf clover. Charles Nelson of the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, north Dublin, Republic of Ireland, deems four-leaf, lucky shamrocks most likely derived from one of five species.

The Nelson survey team enumerated black medic (Medicago lupulina), lesser clover (Trifolium dubium), red clover (T. pratense), white clover (T. repens) and wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella).

The 221 respondents in 30 countries furnished the Nelson survey team with sample shamrocks that respectively favored lesser and white clovers at 46 and 35 percent.

The Fabaceae (from Latin faba,"bean") bean, legume and pea family member grows by spring division of lesser clover rootballs or spring/fall germination of lesser clover seeds. Lesser clover seedhead pods each have one brown, oval, smooth 0.04-inch- (1-millimeter-) long seed that pre-last-frost temperatures below minus 13.8 degrees Celsius (7.16 degrees Fahrenheit) harms. Lesser clovers, identified scientifically as Trifolium dubium (from Greek τρίφυλλον, "three-leafed" and Latin dubium, "doubt"), include dry, globe-like, membraneous, straight, thin, 0.08-inch- (2-millimeter-) long fruit pods.

Gravelly clay, loamy or sandy soils juggle annually seeded pods within bee-pollinated flowers on three-leaf lesser clovers or lucky shamrocks (from Old Irish seamróg, "young clover").

Lesser clovers keep their indehiscent (from Latin in-, "non-" and dehiscentem, "opening") pods within their five-lobed, five-toothed, five-veined, grooved, 0.08-inch (2-millimeter) calyx (from Greek κάλυξ, "husk").

Each calyx lodges female and male reproductive parts respectively as one pollen-receiving carpel (from French carpelle, "ovary") and as 10 pollen-producing stamens (from Latin stāmen, "thread"). Every calyx, as outermost whorl discreetly two-toothed and, lower down, noticeably three-toothed, maintains one 0.12- to 0.16-inch- (3- to 4-millimeter-) long corolla (from Latin corōlla, "wreathlet"). Every corolla, on maximally 0.04-inch- (1-millimeter-) long stalks, nets one boat-shaped, unwrinkled standard amid two wing-like side petals nodding parallel to two fused, keel-forming lower petals.
Lesser clovers, observed scientifically by John Sibthorp (Oct. 28, 1759-Feb. 8, 1796), offer three- to 25-flowered, 0.24- to 0.35-inch- (6- to 9-millimeter-) long and wide clusters.

The yellow inflorescence's 0.19- to 1.6-inch- (5- to 40-millimeter-) long stalk prettifies 0.16- to 0.47-inch (4- to 12-millimeter) by 0.12- to 0.32-inch (3- to 8-millimeter) leaflets.

Every leaflet queues up fine-toothed margins, four to nine paired lateral veins and, with paired, parallel-veined, 0.16- to 0.32-inch- (4- to 8-millimeter-) long stipules, rounded bases. One-sixteenth- to 0.32-inch (4- to 8-millimeter) leaf and 1.96- to 7.89-inch (50- to 200-millimeter) main stem lengths require 12- to 15-inch (30- to 38-centimeter) spacing intervals. Soil pHs 6.6 through 7.5 in moist, sunny, well-drained sites with or without partial shade support flowering, fruiting, seeding schedules of lesser clovers April through September.

Perhaps astuteness and, mayhaps through four-leaf transformations of lesser clovers into lucky clovers, auspiciousness trigger Joan Watson's (Lucy Liu) tackling Sherlock's, not someone else's, drug recovery.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) wears a yellow "I am not lucky I am good" t-shirt in CBS Elementary's pilot: Elementary @ ElementaryCBS, via Facebook Sept. 27, 2012

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Lesser clover (Trifolium dubium), a native European flower plant in the pea and clover family Fabaceae, is generally considered as primary plant representing the traditional Irish shamrock; village of Worowo, near Łobez County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, northwestern Poland; Saturday, July 7, 2007: I, Kenraiz (Krzysztof Ziarnek), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trifolium_dubium_kz1.jpg

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) wears a yellow "I am not lucky I am good" t-shirt in CBS Elementary's pilot: Elementary @ ElementaryCBS, via Facebook Sept. 27, 2012, @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/posts/380681435333849

For further information:

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. 1892. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London, England: George Newnes Ltd.

Elementary @ElementaryCBS. 20 September 2012. "Exactly one more week to go until the series premiere! Watch this sneak peek scene from the pilot episode and 'Like' this post if you'll be tuning in Sept. 27 at 10/9c!" Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/posts/357080401043140

Elementary @ ElementaryCBS. 27 September 2012. "Only a few more hours until we meet Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the series premiere of Elementary at 10/9c. Are you ready to tune in?" Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/posts/380681435333849

"The Irish Shamrock Plant: All Myth and Marketing?" Irish Genealogy Toolkit > Symbols of Ireland > Shamrock.
Available @ https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/shamrock-plant.html

"Lesser Hop Trefoil." NatureGate > Plants > Flowers > L.
Available @ http://www.luontoportti.com/suomi/en/kukkakasvit/lesser-hop-trefoil

Sibthrop, Joanne. 1794. "645. Trifolium dubium, fpicis fubrotundis laxe imbricatis, vexillis deflexis perfiftentibus, caulibus procumbentibus." Flora Oxoniensis, Exhibens Plantas in Agro Oxoniensi Sponte Crescentes, Secundum Systema Sexuale Distributas. Oxonii: Fletcher et Hanwell, et J. Cooke, MDCCXCIV.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/50008309
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/b28039452/page/n263

"Trifolium dubium." Electronic Flora of South Australia Species Fact Sheet > Family Leguminosae.
Available @ http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/cgi-bin/speciesfacts_display.cgi?form=speciesfacts&name=Trifolium_dubium

"Trifolium dubium Sibthrop, Fl. Oxon. 231. 1794." Flora of China > Family List > FOC Vol. 10 > Fabaceae > Trifolium.
Available @ http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=242352906

"Trifolium dubium Sibth. Suckling Clover." Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria > VICFLORA Flora of Victoria > Magnoliopsida > FAbalaes > Fabaceae > Trifolium.
Available @ https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/06176248-1ee8-4717-9972-5c388e1f254c

Weston, P.H. "Trifolium dubium Sibth." PlantNet > New South Wales Flora Online > Plant Name Search.
Available @ http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Trifolium~dubium