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茆 is formed by placing the vegetation radical 艹 above the phonetic 卯 (mǎo), a typical phono-semantic structure that signals a botanical term, especially one related to herbaceous or aquatic plants. In its earliest use, it designated the water shield, an aquatic plant of shallow freshwater environments. Over time, 茆 also came to function as a variant of 茅, meaning thatch or coarse grasses for roofing and weaving, and appears frequently in classical poetry and historical literature about rural landscapes and rustic architecture.
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