"W. H. P.," Iowa City, Iowa, says : " Will you be so kind as to answer through the columns of your esteemed journal, the Gardeners' Monthly, the following questions:

"What is the true Shamrock of the Irish? What is its origin ? To what species of plants does it belong? What does the name designate?

"According to my dictionary, it is white clover, but on inquiry of many different Irish people everyone disputed it. Hoping that you will kindly help me out".

[St. Patrick is said to have had an argument with an Irish king, endeavoring to win him to Christianity. The heathen was satisfied on all but one point. He could not understand how there could be three Gods wholly independent of each other, and yet only one God; that the three different persons were really but one individual person, though taking three different forms of development for special purposes or occasions. In order to explain more clearly what he meant the Saint is said to have taken some trifoliate leaf in illustration, which so satisfied the poor heathen that he gave up all opposition and was baptized. The good man's logic was of course at fault, for one leaflet of a clover is not equal to the whole leaf, but it served the purpose, and it is the event that is commemorated, and any one trifoliate leaf is as good as another. It was not long after the event is believed to have occurred that it was made public and celebrated; and the clover leaf was taken as the plant Saint Patrick employed. But as the knowledge of botany developed it became certain that the white clover was not a native of Ireland. It had only been introduced, as it had been into America, after commercial relations with the main continent of Europe commenced. That was subsequent to St. Patrick's time.

Therefore the plant could not have been white clover. So the moderns have had to guess at another plant, and as the only trifoliate plant at all likely to attract observation at that early period was Oxalis Acetosella, abundant everywhere in Irish woods and places where St. Patrick was likely to meet with the original wild Irishman, it has been concluded that this must have been the only plant that could have been employed.

Just what the word Shamrock means, we should be very glad if some of our friends versed in the now almost obsolete Irish language could tell. - Ed. G. M].