Woman's rare discovery in her back garden makes her the 'luckiest person in UK'

A woman has claimed she might just be the "luckiest person in the UK" after stumbling upon an extraordinary find in her back garden.

Sharing her story on Reddit, she posted a photo of a remarkable cluster of four-leaf clovers that she picked from the lawn.

These rare plants are a variation of the typical three-leaf clover and are estimated to occur only once in every 5,000 plants, based on studies. There's ongoing debate about whether the fourth leaf is a result of genetic mutation or environmental factors.

Curious Redditors were quick to engage with the post, with one asking: "How do you find so many at once? I spent ages one afternoon looking in the garden as a child and I only found one. Did manage to find a five leaf clover as well though."

I may be the luckiest person in the UK at the moment
byu/DoubleManufacturer28 inCasualUK

To this, the woman responded: "This is gonna sound weird but things have been kinda tough for me these past few days and I kept hoping to find one as a sign things will be okay. Walking to the bus stop today and I find one, the biggest one and think 'wherever there's one, there's usually another' and then boom – they just started showing up. I counted about 26 in total."

Another commenter expressed astonishment at the number she found: "You're about 6% on your way to beating to world record for most found in an hour," they explained. "The world record for number of 4-leaf clovers collected in one hour by an individual is 451."

With her newfound luck, suggestions poured in on how she could use it to her advantage. "Invest in shares," recommended one user, while another chimed in with a tip to "Get those Euro Millions tickets on."

The woman, who has yet to see financial gains from her four-leaf clover discovery, shared some modest windfalls she's encountered since. "Well so far I went to Tesco and my favourite sandwich was reduced to £1.30 so I got that going for me," she quipped.

She also recounted another small piece of luck: "Today I made mac n cheese for dinner and it's the best mac n cheese I ever made. Everything went perfectly. Seems I still have some luck."

BBC Science Focus explains the rarity of the four-leaf clover: "Whereas human chromosomes come in matched pairs, clovers have four copies of each chromosome per cell. The gene responsible for four-leaf clovers is 'recessive', which means that the plant will only produce four leaves if it has the four-leaf gene on all four chromosomes, which is a rare occurrence."

It's mentioned that factors like temperature and soil acidity can influence whether the clover develops the fourth leaf.