Ironed Pepper Moss

Old English īsern, iron — past-participle of iron. As a color modifier, ironed implies a clear-and-smoothed-and-pressed quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern freshly-ironed-shirt-and-trouser dress-attire textile finish. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and starched in usage.

Latin piper, black-pepper-corn. As a color modifier, pepper implies a black-pepper-corn-and-Malabar-Coast quality, the visual register of Malabar-Coast-and-Vietnamese-pepper hand-black-pepper-corn-and-Malabar-Coast Malabar-Coast-and-Vietnamese-pepper-and-Tellicherry pepper-and-black-pepper-corn surfaces under Malabar-Coast-and-Vietnamese-pepper-and-Tellicherry Malabar-and-Tellicherry-and-Phu-Quoc Indian-Ocean-spice-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to clove and cumin 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.