Bamboo

As the ideogram for bamboo (竹) serves as the radical or base for 1181 characters in Japanese, the importance of take to both language and culture can be easily appreciated. Some examples: 箸：hashi- chopsticks 筆：fude, hitsu- brush (writing or painting), pen, writing implement. When take is used in this way, it is placed above the other character(s) and is known as 竹冠- take-kanmuri, or bamboo crown. Incidentally, kusa, or grass (艸, 草) heads this list with 2173 characters, the crown above 早 serving as the radical.