Pithed Loropetalum
Pithed Loropetalum (#491A8A) is a deep indigo with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (265°, 68%, 32%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary lime. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English piþa, pith / inner stalk — past-participle of pith. As a color modifier, pithed implies a deep-and-cored-out quality where the visual surface has been excavated to reveal interior darkness. Sits at the deep-and-architectural end of the grid, parallel to hollowed and cored.
Asian Chinese fringe flower (Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum) — an evergreen shrub native to southern China cultivated worldwide for its strap-like fringed flowers and burgundy foliage. Loropetalum color refers to a L. chinense flush of fringed flowers on burgundy foliage: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the velvet finish of dense ribbon-petal flowers. The genus name combines Greek loros (strap) and petalon (petal).
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.
Wide gamut
The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.
Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.