Shellac (紫草茸)

Claim & Evidence

Claim: 紫草茸 (zǐcǎoróng) is a Chinese incense ingredient (insect-derived, not botanical) — lac resin, the secretion of the lac insect Kerria lacca (formerly Laccifer lacca) — with an aroma profile of resinous, waxy, subtle, slightly sweet.

Evidence sources:

Source Type Evidence level Accessed
Kerria lacca (lac insect) on GBIF taxonomy Tier 2 — Academic / Museum / Institutional 2026-09-20
本草纲目 虫之一 on Wikisource traditional Tier 3 — Historical primary source 2026-09-20
香乘 on Wikisource traditional Tier 3 — Historical primary source 2026-09-20

Attributes

Field Value
Chinese 紫草茸
Pinyin zǐcǎoróng
Scientific name Kerria lacca (lac insect; formerly Laccifer lacca) — lac resin
Type ingredient
Aroma resinous, waxy, subtle, slightly sweet
Category Resins

Relationships

Type Related entity
category Resins
aroma Resinous
related Dragon's Blood
related Benzoin

Main Site

Read the full article: Shellac on IncenseHerbs


Auto-generated from the LanDeng Open Datasets (single source of truth: datasets/*.json). See Format & Governance for data conventions.