How to Write 藘 (lǘ) — Meaning “madder (a type of plant)”

Visualize "grass (艹) over a worried heart (心)" — imagine the madder plant dyeing your clothes red while you worry about the stain. The sound lǘ rhymes with "blue," but the plant actually makes red, which is a fun contrast to remember.

Start with the grass radical 艹 (3 strokes: horizontal, vertical, left-falling). Then write 慮, which begins with 虍 (tiger radical, 6 strokes), followed by 田 (5 strokes) and finally 心 (4 strokes). A common mistake is to forget the small horizontal stroke inside 虍 or to make 心 too compressed.

藘 (lǘ) means madder, a dye plant, while 薰 (xūn) refers to fragrant herbs like lavender used for smoking or scenting. 䕭 is extremely rare and often confused; it has a different component below 艹 (䕭 has 芻 instead of 慮). Visually, 藘 uses 慮 (with 虍, 田, 心), while 薰 uses 熏 (with 千, 黑).

藘 is very rare in modern Chinese and not part of the HSK vocabulary. It appears mainly in classical texts about traditional dyeing or medicinal herbs, where the root of the madder plant was used to produce a vibrant red color. Culturally, madder was one of the earliest dye plants in China, giving ancient robes their distinctive red hue.

Common words containing 藘 include: 茹藘 (rú lǘ) — madder (a plant used for dyeing); 藘草 (lǘ cǎo) — lv grass; 藘茹 (lǘ rú) — lvru (a medicinal herb; madder).