Tony Williams needs a new heart and some luck.
He might have found the latter Wednesday when he discovered a rare nine-leaf clover in his front yard.
"Who knows?" said Williams, 42. "It can't hurt."
The find provided a welcome light moment for Williams, an Army veteran and former call-center worker who wears a backpack pump to power his heart. Heart disease runs in his family. He is hoping for a transplant.
Williams was looking for a four-leaf clover when he spotted the strange specimen. "At first I thought it was two of them stuck together," he said Thursday in his eastern Henrico County home. "But it never came apart."
The clover has eight clearly visible leaves — technically leaflets, which are parts of leaves — with a ninth tucked under the others. Williams is keeping it in a cup with water.
Three leaflets, of course, are the norm for clover. Four is "somewhat unusual" — hence the notion that a four-leafer is a good-luck charm — and more than that is even less common, said John Hayden, a University of Richmond biologist.
"I've seen five and six, but I can't remember ever seeing more leaflets than that," Hayden said. "I would judge eight or nine leaflets to be quite rare indeed."
Stewart Ware, a College of William and Mary botanist, called Williams' clover "very, very, very rare."
"Quite an interesting find," Ware said, "and definitely an extremely unusual one."
Williams is exploring ways to preserve the little oddity. He is willing to donate it to a museum or agency that would display it. "I want to continue to show it to other people … to show it to kids."
Williams lives with his wife, Akia, a VCU Medical Center lab technician, and daughters Kalifa, 11, and Tokhia, 3.
Williams competes with Kalifa to see who can spot the most four-leaf clovers. "When he told me (of his find), I didn't believe him at first," Kalifa said.
She thinks she just might beat her dad's discovery someday.
Now that would take some luck.
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