Index: src/core.js
===================================================================
--- src/core.js	(revision 5831)
+++ src/core.js	(working copy)
@@ -936,12 +936,13 @@
 	},
 
 	clean: function( elems, context ) {
-		var ret = [];
 		context = context || document;
 		// !context.createElement fails in IE with an error but returns typeof 'object'
 		if (typeof context.createElement == 'undefined')
 			context = context.ownerDocument || context[0] && context[0].ownerDocument || document;
 
+		var ret = [], div = context.createElement("div");
+
 		jQuery.each(elems, function(i, elem){
 			if ( typeof elem == 'number' )
 				elem += '';
@@ -959,7 +960,7 @@
 				});
 
 				// Trim whitespace, otherwise indexOf won't work as expected
-				var tags = jQuery.trim( elem ).toLowerCase(), div = context.createElement("div");
+				var tags = jQuery.trim( elem ).toLowerCase();
 
 				var wrap =
 					// option or optgroup
@@ -1031,6 +1032,8 @@
 
 		});
 
+		// Remove the elements from the temporary div (#3255) 
+		div.innerHTML = '';
 		return ret;
 	},