Picking herbs and wildflowers — つみくさ (摘み草)

Tsumikusa — gathering herbs and wildflowers in fields or along roadsides — was a seasonal activity associated with early spring, when young women collected edible plants and flowering grasses. Shuntei's composition likely places a figure or small group outdoors, bent or crouching among low vegetation, with gathered plants in a basket or furoshiki. The subject draws on a classical tradition of spring excursions depicted in both poetry and pictorial art. The outdoor setting allows the artist to render seasonal flora with specificity — fiddlehead ferns, shepherd's purse, or early wildflowers — using [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) color registration to differentiate plant forms. The print captures the transition from winter to spring through the relationship between the figure's activity and the surrounding landscape.