Polished Ray Moss

Latin polīre, to polish — past-participle of polish. As a color modifier, polished implies a clear-and-smooth-and-glossy quality where the hue carries the visual register of buffed-and-burnished smooth-finish surface. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to burnished and gleaming in usage.

Latin radius, spoke-or-beam. As a color modifier, ray implies a radiant-and-spoke-of-light quality, the visual register of Bernini-Gloria-and-Baroque-altarpiece-ray hand-radiant-and-spoke-of-light Bernini-Gloria-and-Baroque-altarpiece-and-Counter-Reformation rayed-and-radiant-and-spoke-of-light surfaces under Bernini-Gloria-and-Baroque-altarpiece-and-Counter-Reformation gilded-spoke-and-altar-and-cathedral-dome heavenly-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to beam and gleam 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.