Clover may look like a common lawn weed, but clover is edible! Add its raw leaves to salads, sauté and add to dishes for a splash of green, eat the red or white flowers raw or cooked, or dry the flowers and use for tea.
Eating clover can help the lymphatic system in our bodies, cleaning up all its waterways and improving our blood.
It is an important food for honeybees and bumblebees.
It belongs to the genus Trifolium repens, meaning “having three leaves.” They sprout flowers in shades of white, pink, red and yellow in the spring and summer.
The Celts of Wales used white clover to ward off evil spirits. White clover is considered the traditional Irish symbol of a shamrock, which does not include a fourth leaf.
The four-leafed clover is a mutation — only 1 in 10,000 shamrocks have four leaves, making them rare or “lucky.”
St. Patrick used the three leaves of the shamrock — which means “little clover” in Gaelic — to describe the Holy Trinity to the Irish people. The three leaves are also said to stand for faith, hope and love.