Small white flowers clustered at the tips of branches about 1.2 m high — otokoeshi. I found a single plant blooming in the mixed woods of Ninomaru in the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace just before Palaceside Building.
Written in kanji as "male flower," one of the seven autumn flowers; it resembles ominaeshi = photo bottom =, but ominaeshi is yellow while otokoeshi is white. Stems and leaves are larger and hairier, so "male" may fit better.
White flowers resemble white rice; yellow ominaeshi was likened to millet — in old times men ate white rice and women millet, so the white-flowered plant was called otokomeshi (men's rice) and the yellow ominameshi (women's rice), names that stuck. Women were
marginalized in naming, yet ominaeshi is among the seven autumn flowers, praised in Man'yoshu, waka, haiku, and ikebana — while otokoeshi is little known; popularity goes to the "female." Both are Saxifragaceae, so botanically a "female lineage."