Cryptex Hunt 2022/Can these weird clovers tell your fortune?

Can these weird clovers tell your fortune?
Cryptex Hunt 2022
Author(s)	Jenna Himawan
Links
Puzzle	Link

Can these weird clovers tell your fortune? is the first puzzle of the 2022 Cryptex Hunt, and is presented as one of each letter of the Latin alphabet among a field of clovers.

Solve Paths

Solvers' initial instincts should be to follow the prompt at the top of the page, specifically to find the four-leaf clovers amongst the three- and two-leaved variants. Doing so, they should discover that there are exactly 5 of them, with each touching a single one of the letters. Taking these letters in reading order spells the part 1 answer.

Part 1 Final Answer: Click to revealLUCKY.

Now that the four-leaf clovers have been used, one other odd thing solvers should notice are the oddly-shaped two-leaf clovers (another not-too-common variant). Each leaf's long edge points in one of the 8 ordinal or cardinal directions. This paired with the fact that there are always two different directions being pointed to clues to flag semaphore, a common method of decryption involving pairs of directions. The two-leaf clovers are arranged on the page approximately into two lines of length 6 and 5. Reading each line using semaphore yields POTATO STATE, which is a clue for the part 2 answer.

Part 2 Final Answer: Click to revealIDAHO.

Puzzle Elements

Part 1

Hint in Flavortext - The puzzle asks solvers to find all of the four-leaf clovers, which leads to... Marked Letters - The letters marked with lucky clovers can simply be read in reading order to get the final answer.

Part 2

Odd One Out - While the flavortext mentions 3- and 4-leaf clovers, it makes no mention of two-leaf clovers, which end up being the most important for this part.

Semaphore - By reading the two-leaf clovers as pairs of semaphore flags, solvers can read their last clue...

Final Clue Phrase - ..."POTATO STATE".