Starched Tatar Moss

Old English stercan, to stiffen — past-participle of starch. As a color modifier, starched implies a clear-and-stiff-and-formal quality, the crisp color of Edwardian-period formal-evening-shirt-and-collar starched-and-pressed dress-attire. Sits at the crisp-and-finished end of the grid, parallel to pressed and ironed in usage.

Mongolian Tatar, Tatar. As a color modifier, tatar implies a Kazan-and-Crimean-Khanate quality, the visual register of Tatar-Khanate-of-Kazan-and-Crimea Mongol-successor Central-Asian-and-Eastern-European hand-built Khanate-and-trading-city surfaces under Kazan-and-Crimean Tatar-Khanate post-Mongol-successor trading-and-fortress light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to mongol and hun 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.