flowers with valvate petals

He did some work for the New York Public Library . . . and also dabbled in eleemosynary science for the Russell Sage Foundation.

The 3rd person plural -ą ending is phonetically [ow̃] or [om], depending on the dialect. However, [ow̃] is the prestige form.

To Hsieh T'iao it all came as a surprise. In 490 he was offered a prestigious position as Prince Sui's wen-hsüeh (literary scholar) and was to follow Prince Sui far west to Ching-chou in modern Hupei, then a growing city as flourishing as Chien-k'ang.