U+8576 "蕶" CJK Unified Ideograph-# Unicode Character

U+8576 "蕶" CJK Unified Ideograph-# is a Chinese character (Hanzi) that typically refers to the water caltrop, also known as lingjiao or Trapa natans, a type of aquatic plant with edible, horn-shaped nuts. In classical and modern Chinese usage, this character more specifically denotes a variant or less common form of the character 菱 (líng), which also means water caltrop or ling nut. Its structure combines the grass radical 艹, indicating its botanical nature, with the phonetic component 令 (lìng), which provides a clue to its pronunciation. While it is not a frequently used character in everyday simplified Chinese, it appears in literary texts, historical documents, and botanical contexts, particularly when describing traditional aquatic plants or in ancient poetry.