Re: KATABAMI Family Crest

I don't know your family crest, but there are several crests which have the katabami (wood sorrel) plant in the design.Here's background on this design from "The Elements of Japanese Design:A Handbook of Family Crests, Heraldry & Symbolism", by John W. Dower, Weatherhill, 1971:
(p. 84) "In early days in Japan, the leaf of the wood sorrel was used to make a medicinal salve, and also to polish bronze mirrors; because of the latter use, it was also known as kagami-gusa or "mirror plant."Although the wood sorrel produces a small five-petaled flower, patterns and crests based on this plant invariably depict the trifoliate clover-like leaf rather than the flower.This pattern was particularly popular as a decoration on carriages in the Heian period, and later came to enjoy a tremendous vogue among the warrior class for various reasons.
The fruit of the wood sorrel contains many seeds, and the plant is extremely reproductive.In later centuries, some warriors who used the wood sorrel as an emblem cited this characteristic as an auspicious token for the future proliferation of their families.Of greater appeal to the martial class than this tenous implication, however, was the graphic convention of introducing a swordblade device into the depiction of the leaf itself.For some reason, as the selection below indicates, this convention was particularly widely practiced in drawing the wood sorrel; if blades were not inserted between each leaf, then at the very least the small tuck at the base of each leaf was depicted as a tiny blade.Even the wood sorrel butterfly bristles at the beholder."

Some examples of a crest with the katabami design are shown at: http://www.asgy.co.jp/anglais/top10kamon/top10kamon.htmlhttp://www.asgy.co.jp/anglais/top10kamon/top10kamon.html