Smooth Sol Moss

Old English smōþ, level, polished — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous without texture or break. Smooth tan, smooth gray: moderate saturation combined with optical evenness. Sits in the crisp-bucket alongside even.

Latin sol, sun-and-Roman-sun-god. As a color modifier, sol implies a Roman-sun-god-and-stellar-disc quality, the visual register of Roman-Sol-Invictus-and-Apollo-sun hand-Roman-sun-god-and-stellar-disc Roman-Sol-Invictus-and-Apollo-sun-and-Helios-chariot sol-and-Roman-sun-god-and-stellar-disc surfaces under Roman-Sol-Invictus-and-Apollo-sun-and-Helios-chariot December-25-and-Helios-and-quadriga noon-stellar-disc-light. Sits at the modifier-and-zodiac end of the grid, parallel to luna and terra 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.