by Mason Heberling
Collected in Ireland in 1891, this specimen was found by Susan and Edward Harper, who were plant collectors from the Field Museum in Chicago. This specimen is a clover species (Trifolium campestre), known as hop trefoil or field clover. Clovers usually refer to a group of species that belong to the genus Trifolium, meaning three-leafed.
Next year, we will look for that mystical four-leaf clover among the 1,877 clover specimens in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Herbarium.
Mason Heberling is a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences working with museum collections.