磷

Left-side stone radical - pictograph of a rock under a cliff overhang. The indexing radical, marking 磷 as a mineral: phosphorus, the chemical element. Phosphorus was first isolated from bone-ash residues, fitting the stone radical's 'mineral' frame. Same mineral family: 矿 ore, 砂 sand, 硫 sulphur, 硝 saltpetre, 碳 carbon.

Right side 粦 supplies the sound exactly: lín to lín, identical pinyin and tone. 粦 is itself a graph for the eerie 'corpse-light' flickering over old battlefields - actually phosphorus from buried bones igniting in damp air. The element name 磷 thus encodes the phenomenon it was discovered through. Same phonetic: 鳞 fish-scale, 麟 unicorn, 邻 neighbour.