Polished Nova 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 nova, new-or-newly-bright-star. As a color modifier, nova implies a sudden-bright-and-newly-erupted-and-flaring quality, the visual register of Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-supernova-nova hand-sudden-bright-and-newly-erupted Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-and-Cassiopeia-A nova-and-sudden-bright-and-flaring surfaces under Tycho-Brahe-and-Kepler-and-Cassiopeia-A late-Renaissance-observatory-and-naked-eye sudden-stellar-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to flare and spark 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.