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The character 葚 (shèn) is a phono-semantic compound: the grass radical 艹 at the top groups it with plants, while the phonetic component 甚 (shèn) below indicates its pronunciation. It refers specifically to the edible fruit of the mulberry tree, which ripens from green to red and finally to dark purple or black. Because mulberry leaves are essential for sericulture, this fruit carried cultural and economic weight, and the character appears frequently in classical texts, agricultural treatises, and poetry to describe these sweet, dark berries.
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