Polished Gleam 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.

Old English glǣm, brightness-or-shine. As a color modifier, gleam implies a low-and-glancing-and-bright quality, the visual register of polished-armor-and-river-water-gleam hand-polished-and-glancing-and-bright polished-armor-and-river-water-and-blade-edge gleamed-and-polished-and-glancing surfaces under polished-armor-and-river-water blade-edge-and-helm-and-shield medieval-tournament-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to glint and sheen 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.