a. Also -leafed. [See LEAVED and LEAFED.] Having three leaves, or leaves consisting each of three leaflets; trifoliate. Three-leaved grass, an old name for clover; in quot. 1634 app. wood-sorrel (cf. prec. a); three-leaved ivy, an American name for the poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron); three-leaved rush, Juncus trifidus.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 595/33. Melilotum, thre-leued-gras.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 41. Among so many thre-leued herbes as we haue.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 18. Such as haue the Scuruy,… eat three-leafed-grasse, fresh meate, or the like.
1772. Forster, in Phil. Trans., LXII. 55. The threeleaved Hellebore.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., V. 296. Three-leaved Rush…. This rare species,… has crowded, erect, thread-like stems, from four to six inches high.
1884. J. Tait, Mind in Matter (1892), 329. Saint Patrick … employed the three-leaved clover to illustrate the Unity of Nature, and Plurality of Persons in the Deity.
