Chinese character 蓷

蓷 is an old Chinese name for a medicinal herb linked with 益母草.

A well-known early literary appearance is in 《王风·中谷有蓷》, a poem in the Shijing, an early Chinese poetry collection. The Shijing tradition is commonly placed from roughly the early Western Zhou to the middle Spring and Autumn period, two early Chinese historical eras.

Chinese dictionaries link 蓷 with the herb names 茺蔚 and 益母草.

What does 蓷 do in the Shijing poem?

It names the plant that opens a lament about separation.

The three stanzas repeat the plant name, move through images of drying and wetting, then describe a woman’s sighing, lament and tears. The poem’s traditional preface, an introductory note, links its sorrow to famine and families abandoning one another; later commentary connects the herb with women’s medicine. These are readings of that poem, not a general meaning of 蓷.

Why do older herb books use different names?

Older labels do not always identify one modern species.

Older herb books record the plant under 茺蔚子 and debate whether white- and purple-flowered forms belonged to the same medicinal plant. That dispute explains why historical plant names do not map neatly onto one modern species.