葎

葎 (Kangxi radical 140, 艸+9, 12 strokes, cangjie input 廿竹人手 (THOQ), four-corner 4425₇, composition ⿱艹律)

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1044, character 13
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 31397
• Dae Jaweon: page 1505, character 9
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 5, page 3252, character 4
• Unihan data for U+844E

葎

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

(Hyōgai kanji)

• Go-on: りち (richi)
• Kan-on: りつ (ritsu)
• Kun: むぐら (mugura, 葎)、うぐら (ugura, 葎)、もぐら (mogura, 葎)
• Nanori: つ (tsu)

Japanese Wikipedia has an article on:

ムグラ

Wikipedia ^ja

From Old Japanese.^[1] Probably the eastern Japanese form. Compare the alternation in ugura and mugura readings in the etymology of 土竜.

May ultimately derive from obsolete verb 剥る (mukuru, “to peel off, to tear off”), perhaps related to the way that weeds are often removed by tearing the plant out.

• (Tokyo) むぐら (Heiban – )^[2]
• IPA^(key):

葎(むぐら) • (mugura) 

1. any of various plants of order Gentianales or Urticales, that form thickets, often have thorns and form vines, and prefer wet or disturbed soils; generally regarded as weeds
   • c. 759, Man’yōshū, book 19, poem 4270:
     , text here:

     牟具良波布 / 伊也之伎屋戸母 / 大皇之 / 座牟等知者 / 玉之可麻思乎

     葎延ふ / 賎しき宿も / 大君の / 座さむと知らば / 玉敷かましを

     むぐら はふ / いやしき やど も / おほきみ の / まさむ と しらば / たま しかまし を

     Mugura hafu / iyashiki yado mo / ohokimi no / masamu to shiraba / tama shikamashi wo

     Even a shabby house surrounded by weed thickets would be as if strewn with jewels if I knew you were there

The plants called by this name are many and varied, and include plants such as madder, cleaver, and hops.

The reading mugura appears to be the most common.

As with many terms that name organisms, this term is often spelled in katakana, especially in biological contexts (where katakana is customary), as ムグラ.

From Old Japanese. Probably the western Japanese form. Compare the alternation in ugura and mugura readings in the etymology of 土竜.

• (Tokyo) うぐら (Heiban – )
• IPA^(key):

葎(うぐら) • (ugura) 

1. any of various plants of order Gentianales or Urticales, that form thickets, often have thorns and form vines, and prefer wet or disturbed soils; generally regarded as weeds

Probably an alteration or dialectal variant of mugura above. Appears with this reading in the 本草和名 (Honzō Wamyō, “Japanese Names of the Real Herbs”), a pharmacopoeia written in 923.^[1] Still listed as an alternate reading in modern dictionaries.^[1][2]

• (Tokyo) もぐら (Heiban – )^[2]
• IPA^(key):

葎(もぐら) • (mogura) 

1. Any of various plants of order Gentianales or Urticales, that form thickets, often have thorns and form vines, and prefer wet or disturbed soils; generally regarded as weeds
   • c. 918, 深根輔仁 [Fukane Sukehito], 本草和名 [Japanese Names of Herbs, Honzō Wamyō]:

     葎草 仁諝、音葎　一名葛律葛　出蘇敬注　一名葛勒蔓　出楕疑　和名毛久良

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• Fukane no Sukehito (c. 901–923) Maruyama Yumiko, Wu Qian, editors, Honzō Wamyō: Eiin, Honkoku to Kenkyū) (in Japanese), Kyūko Shoin, published 2021, →ISBN.