How to Write 苈 (lì) — Meaning “Draba (a genus of flowering plants)”

Imagine a small plant (艹) growing out of a calendar (历) to represent the hardy Draba plant that blooms in early spring. This connects the grass radical to the phonetic part and highlights the plant's seasonal nature.

Write the top 艹 first (horizontal, vertical, horizontal) making it wide enough to cover 历 below. Then write 历: start with the horizontal and left-falling strokes of 厂, then add 力 (horizontal hook and left-falling). A common mistake is making the grass radical too narrow or forgetting the 厂 part, which would make it look like 艻.

苈 has 历 (calendar) below the grass radical, while 兹 has 玄 (mysterious) below and is used in words like 现在 (now). 艻 has only 力 (strength) below and no 厂, meaning a different type of grass. Visually, 苈 has an extra left-falling stroke inside the lower part compared to 艻.

苈 is very rare and appears mainly in the words 葶苈 (tíng lì) and 葶苈子 (tíng lì zǐ), which refer to a medicinal herb and its seeds used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is not part of HSK vocabulary, so you will only encounter it in botanical or medical materials.

Common words containing 苈 include: 葶苈 (tíng lì) — draba (herb); 葶苈子 (tíng lì zi) — draba seeds (used in TCM); 苦葶苈 (kǔ tíng lì) — Bitter tansy mustard.