Where the shape comes from
Grains of salt scattered inside a bounded patch of ground, the picture of a natural salt flat where crystals were gathered rather than boiled from brine. It sits inside the traditional 鹽, salt, the everyday word built up around this very picture, and survives independently in 卤水, a spiced brine or master stock, the salty liquid a cook returns to again and again to braise meat in.
汉字 filed under 鹵
No published character on HSK Guide is filed under this radical yet. 汉字库.