Teenage Mutant Karate Clover

This can't be a coincidence can it? I put up Turtles on The Simpsons and then this chalkboard gag shows up! OK, OK, so it's just a coincidence.

I see dead people. Er, I mean, I find mutant clovers. (Sometimes called "Four-Leafed Clovers", but I'll include more :D )

I started finding them when I was a kid on lazy summer days on the family farm. I guess it laid the pathways for good clover spotting algorithms in my brain, because I keep finding them. Before starting this page, I'd found several with 5 leaves, one with 6, a few with unseparated leaves, etc. Interestingly enough I've found more around roadsides than on Argonne National Laboratory itself, even though I expected the mutation rate to be higher there. But those car exhausts really cause havoc on clover I guess :(

So, a couple of years ago, I decided to let the mutants take over and stop picking them and start taking pictures. (OK, really I was tired of trying to preserve them after I picked them.) So.. here are some pictures. (Be sure to click on the thumbnails - they're cropped out from the larger composition.)

Images with this symbol have stereo versions associated with them. Click on the thumbnail to see the full-sized image as well as the stereo images.

2007

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  2007-05-02@13-50
  Irish FOURtune
  Mutant hunting season 2007 has begun!

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  2007-05-02@13-52
  FOURtune keeps smiling
  Outside my office

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  2007-05-16@13-55
  Showing great FOURtitude
  Path near building 212

2011

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  2011-06-24@14-12
  A SIXY clover
  I'm pushing it with the number puns aren't I?

2013

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  2013-06-12@17-35
  And you thought I FOURgot!
  As I was racing to my car to beat a thunderstorm

Links

• Old Teenage Mutant Karate Clover page on tometheus.com
• Why Are Four Leaf Clovers So Rare. (Dead link, archived version)