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The character 芍 consists of the grass radical 艹, marking it as a plant, and the phonetic 勺 (spoon), which gives it its sound. It appears almost exclusively in botanical names for flowering plants, most notably combining with another character to form 芍药, the Chinese peony, a herbaceous plant valued both as an ornamental and for its medicinal roots. These roots are harvested, processed, and sorted into white and red varieties used to treat various ailments in traditional medicine.
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