Spick Frock Moss

Old Norse spik-spakr, spike-new — sharing root with spic-and-span. As a color modifier, spick implies a clear-and-newly-cleaned quality where the hue carries the just-polished visual register of fresh-painted-and-fresh-cleaned surfaces. Sits at the crisp-and-clean end of the grid, parallel to spotless and pristine in usage.

Old French froc, monk's-habit-or-loose-garment. As a color modifier, frock implies a monk's-habit-and-pinafore-and-day-frock quality, the visual register of Benedictine-monk's-frock-and-Edwardian-day-frock hand-monk's-habit-and-pinafore-and-day-frock Benedictine-monk's-frock-and-Edwardian-day-frock-and-pinafore frock-and-monk's-habit-and-pinafore surfaces under Benedictine-monk's-frock-and-Edwardian-day-frock-and-pinafore Cluny-Abbey-and-Edwardian-tea-room habit-and-day-dress-light. Sits at the modifier-and-textile end of the grid, parallel to gown and cope 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.