Cattail-root greens along with wild-rice shoots — four sorts that grow near water and are truly clear and fine.

茭兒菜 is the tender shoot of wild rice, and 蒲根 the root of the cattail. Both grow in the shallow margins of ponds, which is where a family with no field goes for food.

Wheat-watching girl, delicate and fair; ragged-patch, which nobody wears.

Two limbs cut to exactly the same measure, three characters and three on each side, which is why they belong in one unit. 看麥娘, the girl who watches the wheat, is a grass that grows in wheat fields; 破破納 is a patched-and-mended rag, used as a plant name — and the poet cannot resist the joke that this one is not for wearing.

Bitter hemp on its terrace, under the trellis of the fence.

Seven characters, and the picture is of a plant growing where the fence is — the kitchen boundary of a poor house, where the things you eat and the things you grow up against each other.

Sparrow's cotton-wadding, monkey's footprint, fried till the oil glistens and then it is only good to eat.

猢猻腳跡, monkey's footprint — and a monkey is listening. 油灼灼 doubles its last character for the shine of hot oil. 只好吃 is a lovely turn: nothing left for it but to be delicious.