The popular allusion to plucking a sprig of osmanthus goes back to Xi Shen of the Jin dynasty (265--420), who self-deprecatingly referred to himself before the emperor as "a sprig from an osmanthus grove, a chip of jade from Kunshan."
民間「折桂」的典故，來自晉人郤詵在皇帝面前自謙為「桂林一枝，昆山片玉」。