Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata)

Known in Japan as dokudami, Houttuynia cordata is a hardy ground-covering perennial with heart-shaped leaves and small flowers consisting of four white bracts surrounding a yellow spike. It is common in shaded, damp ground throughout Japan and has long been used as a folk medicinal herb. The print belongs to the kacho-e (bird-and-flower) tradition adapted to the sosaku-hanga manner of Hiratsuka's practice. Where Edo-period kacho-e tended toward refined linear contour and graded color, Hiratsuka would treat the plant through carved planes of solid black, isolating the architecture of the leaves and bracts against the washi ground. Botanical subjects appear regularly in his output and offered him a self-contained pictorial unit in which the cut of the block could substitute for the brushwork of nihonga botanical painting.