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蘩 (fán) refers to white southernwood (Artemisia stelleriana), an aromatic herb used in ancient sacrificial rituals and documented in traditional botanical classifications. It is a phono-semantic compound: the grass radical 艹 (cǎo) at the top signals a plant, and 繁 (fán) below gives the pronunciation fán while meaning "multitude" or "flourishing" , a possible nod to the plant's dense foliage. Due to its specialized meaning, 蘩 appears primarily in classical poetry, historical agricultural writings, and herbal taxonomy.
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