Inviting Murk Moss

Latin invītāre, to invite — present-participle of invite. As a color modifier, inviting implies a clear-and-cordial-and-encouraging quality where the hue carries the visual register of warm-inviting-and-encouraging entrance-foyer color tone. Sits at the crisp-and-cheerful end of the grid, parallel to welcoming and hospitable in usage.

Old Norse myrkr, darkness-or-obscurity. As a color modifier, murk implies a clouded-and-dim-and-obscured quality, the visual register of fen-and-bog-and-tarn-murk hand-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh murky-and-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured surfaces under fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh peat-stained-and-clouded-and-dim swamp-and-fen-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to gloom and pall in usage.

Bryophyta — the nonvascular plants that colonized land 470 million years ago, before vascular plants and far before flowers. The color refers to a thick mat of Hypnum or sphagnum on a temperate forest floor: a soft, slightly yellow-shifted green with the velvet texture of millimeter-scale leaves. Dustier than fern, deeper than lichen, with the slow patience of a plant that lives by absorbing rain through its surface.