Dublin, Ireland ? For one week a year, nursery owner Cecil Geddis is knee-deep in shamrocks, the delicate three-leafed plant that people the world over associate with Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day.

“You have to move fast in this business. Nobody wants to buy a shamrock on March 18,” said Geddis, whose nursery has produced 80,000 shamrock plants, most shipped out in cartons bearing leprechaun decorations and labeled: “Authentic shamrock – grown in Ireland.”

While wearing a freshly cut shamrock is a fading tradition in Ireland, a few savvy growers and seed merchants are wooing foreign buyers and tourists with claims that the shamrock seeds and plants they offer are unique to the Emerald Isle.

“About 10 or 15 years ago, the source of shamrock seeds disappeared, because there was in fact only one source in the country, and the man died. He didn’t pass it on to anybody else!” said Thomas Quearney, owner of a specialist Dublin seed importer, Mr. Middleton Garden Shop.

Quearney claims to have identified a new secret source for seeds that he soon will sell in packets of 100 for less than $5. “These grow genuine shamrocks. It’s not clover at all,” he said.

Botanists say that’s a load of blarney.

“Shamrock only exists on St. Patrick’s Day. Every other day of the year, it’s just young clover,” said botanist Charles Nelson, Ireland’s leading shamrock expert.

He has identified four varieties of clover – white, yellow, black and red, in layman’s terms – that Irish people label shamrock. Each, he says, thrives in the wild and as garden weeds across the globe.

“There’s two principal myths about shamrock: that it’s unique to Ireland, and that it never flowers,” Nelson said by telephone.

“But you can find it easily from Tasmania to North America to the mountains of South Africa. It’s probably growing outside my front door,” said Nelson, who’s now vacationing on a volcanic island off the coast of Morocco.

According to legend, as St. Patrick spread Christianity through Ireland in the fifth century, he seized upon the three leaves of a clover to illustrate the concept of trinity – God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – all springing from the same source.

Historians say the first written references to “shamrocks” as part of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations don’t appear until the early 18th century.

The name “shamrock” is actually an English transliteration from the original Gaelic name for young clover: “seamra” (pronounced “shom-ruh”) for clover and “og” for young. In British royal symbols, the shamrock for centuries has symbolized Ireland, just as the rose denotes England and the thistle Scotland.