Last week's story on mugwort, the chrysthanthemum cousin that Japanese call yomogi and used by the Chinese to make festival rice cakes, brought a lot of response.

The Rev. Duane Pang insists that mugwort isn't the stuff used for in sai biang, the cakes made for the eighth day, fourth month festival; that it's another herb, the English name of which he does not know. Pang said mugwort is used to make rice cakes for the Dragon Boat Festival (fifth day, fifth month). He still collects this unnamed herb along the canal banks in Palama each spring, pounds the leaves up and freezes them. Other readers agreed that in sai/lien sai still grows near O'ahu waterways.

But Marylene Chun, who helped with recipe testing, swears the in sai biang cakes we made with mugwort smelled and tasted like the ones her grandmother made.

If someone will bring me a sample of the in sai/lien sai plant, I'll get it analyzed. But since I'm going on vacation, call me after Sept 20.

Peter Chang said the plant we showed didn't look to him like in sai, either. "I was just in Chinatown last weekend and saw the wooden molds in one of the stores and commented to my wife, Sallie, that Mom used to make 'something' using the molds. ... She would drive my brother and I from Kaimuki to the Ala Wai canal (behind the Kapahulu Library) to pick some leaves from a plant on the bank. ... Maybe other readers have similar memories of the elusive plant!"

Many do: Lots of folks wrote to say they recall picking this with their mothers or grandmothers. Reader Kevin Mow scolded me for not doing enough research; in sai is available free for the picking in the lower Kalihi/Damon Tract area, he said.

Maria Kitch said she used to be able to find mugwort growing wild in spring and early summer in almost every field and wood around the German village where she used to live. She expected to find it readily available here but was sorely disappointed. "I used yomogi most often to make a soupy rice dish called okayu, wonderful in early spring to cleanse the system, but also is said to strengthen the immune system when one is feeling run down."

As to finding mugwort in stores, a reader who signed her e-mail "Shar" said she found powdered mugwort at Palama Market.

Wade Shimoda said he learned the following from Bishop Museum botanist George Staples: that yomogi is known to Filipinos as arbaaka, damong-marai and tinisas, and that you should plant it in pots so it won't spread.

And here's a source for mugwort/yomogi seeds: Kitazawa Seed Co., P.O. Box 13220, Oakland, CA 94661-3220; (510) 595-1188; fax, (510) 595-1860; www.kitazawaseed.com.