Pictogram (象形) . According to Shuowen Jiezi, it's an animal paw with spread toes, hence the character is linked to 蹯.
According to Zhang Shichao (張世超), it's the representation of a wooden plough (力) and some seeds to convey the concept of "disseminate, spread", hence the character is linked to 播.
Exopassive of 辨 (OC *brenʔ, “to divide, distinguish, discriminate”); possibly in the same word-family as another exopassive 瓣 (OC *breːns, “what is divided”). These three thus may be related to either 班 (OC *praːn, “to distribute → to arrange, classify → class, group”) or Mizopʰel(“to split, cut in halves”) (with medial *-r- dropped after labial initials according to Mizo phonotactics) (Schuessler, 2007).
