The vegetable section of Běnc a ˇ o Gāngmù: classification architecture, taxonomic logic, and nomenclatural practice.

The Běnc a ˇ o Gāngmù (Compendium of Materia Medica, 1596) by L ı ˇ Shízhēn (1518-1593) introduced a five-class botanical classification and nomenclature system for its vegetable section (Cài Bù, volumes 26-28), replacing the three-grade quality hierarchy that had organized all earlier Chinese pharmacopeias and marking a departure in the taxonomic history of Chinese natural history. The five classes-Hūnxīn Lèi (pungent aromatic, 32 taxa), Róuhuá Lèi (soft and smooth, 41 taxa), Lu o ˇ cài Lèi (fruit vegetables, 11 taxa), Shu ı ˇ cài Lèi (aquatic vegetables, 6 taxa), and Zhī'ěr Lèi (fungi and mushrooms, 15 taxa)-are distinguished by compound sensory, morphological, and ecological criteria and together comprise 105 edible taxa. This review, grounded in the ethnobotany of traditional Chinese medicine, examines the intellectual foundations of this classification system, its criteria and internal logic, its taxonomic apparatus (nomenclature conventions, etymology, synonymy, and inter-section transfers), and its relationship to earlier Chinese natural history traditions and the contemporaneous emergence of Linnaean systematic botany in Europe. Particular attention is given to the classification of fungi within the vegetable section, the documentation of geographic origins, the handling of introduced species, and the distinction between morphological and functional logic in the Cài Bù. L ı ˇ Shízhēn's five-class system is shown to be a principled, internally consistent taxonomic framework that, while not phylogenetic, remains coherent within the functional and culinary ontology of its time.