蔓

Top grass radical, the compressed 3-stroke form of 艸. It indexes 蔓 in the plant family: 花 flower, 草 grass, 茎 stem, 藤 vine, 萝 trailing creeper. 蔓 specifically names the long trailing stems of climbing plants — vines, runners, tendrils — so the radical does precise semantic work, marking this as botanical rather than abstract.

Bottom 曼 supplies the sound directly: màn. Same phonetic powers 漫 overflow, 慢 slow, 馒 steamed bun, 谩 deceive. 曼 itself depicts a hand pulling something long and drawn out — the perfect semantic echo for a vine, which is precisely a plant stem stretched out across the ground in slow expansion.