Shepherd's Purse

original: 薺菜 (Jicai); Scientific name: Capsella bursa-pastoris. A common edible weed in the mustard family, known for its heart-shaped seed pods.

Woodcut Illustration: A detailed botanical woodcut from the 1848 edition showing a Shepherd's Purse plant. It displays a basal rosette of deeply lobed leaves and several slender, upright stems bearing tiny flowers and the characteristic triangular, "purse-like" seed pods that give the plant its common English name.

Conclusion of the General Preface to the Investigation of Plants

Is it that while our own land truly possesses such things, our methods of cultivation and utilization are not as precise or detailed as those found in the four border regions? term: Four Borders (Siyi), a traditional Chinese term for the peripheral regions surrounding the central Chinese heartland, often used when discussing foreign or "exotic" influences.

The Book of Changes term: Yijing (I Ching), an ancient Chinese foundational text that explains the world through the flow of change and the balance of opposites. is a work in which the Eight Trigrams The fundamental symbols of the Yijing representing the essential forces of nature and reality. intermingle and interact. If this is so, then the vital energies of the East, West, South, North, and the Far North must likewise be complexly interwoven and arranged. Only through such exhaustive transformation and cosmic change can the world achieve "Great Vitality" and "Broad Vitality" Philosophical concepts from the Yijing: "Great Vitality" (Dasheng) refers to the creative, generative power of the Heavens, while "Broad Vitality" (Guangsheng) refers to the expansive, nurturing capacity of the Earth.—forces that exist without fixed direction and without a single, limited form.