Omoto No IV

Omoto — Japanese sacred lily, Rohdea japonica — is a low evergreen perennial with thick strap-shaped leaves arranged in basal rosettes, producing clusters of bright red berries in late autumn that persist through winter. The fourth print in Ikeda's plant series likely presents the plant in its berry-bearing phase, where the dark glossy foliage frames saturated cinnabar-red fruit clusters that are the species's distinguishing feature. Omoto holds cultural weight in Japan as a traditional New Year's plant and a long-cultivated subject of the engei tradition that produced hundreds of named cultivars distinguished by leaf variegation. The technical demands on the printer are precise: the deep green leaves require even opaque application of pigment without bleeding across the keyblock outlines, while the berries must read as discrete glossy spheres rather than a single red mass. As an early entry in the numbered sequence, this print establishes Ikeda's commitment to species that remain visually present through the dormant months.