The poets of Chu often used the fragrant herb sūn to symbolize noble character.
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An ancient name for a fragrant marsh herb, also called 荃. In the Verses of Chu it stands for a person of pure, lofty virtue. Today it survives in food words like 竹荪 (bamboo fungus, a prized edible mushroom).
Below the grass cap, 孙 'grandchild' supplies the sound sūn directly and unchanged, which makes the reading of this otherwise rare herb name easy to guess.
