Stately Pith Fuchsia

An adjectival form of state, condition of dignity. Used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for the deep saturated jewel tones of formal ceremony — the deep blue of a robes-of-state, the deep red of a state-banquet velvet. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial and royal, with slightly less institutional weight.

Old English piþa, pith / inner-stalk. As a color modifier, pith implies a soft-inner-stalk-or-core quality, the visual register of bamboo-and-elderberry-and-rattan-pith hand-cut-and-extracted soft-inner-stalk-or-core hand-cut-and-extracted-pith-and-core surfaces under hand-cut-and-extracted-pith-and-core workshop-light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to cane and bark in usage.

The genus Fuchsia — South American shrubs named in 1703 for the German botanist Leonhart Fuchs. The color refers to the calyx and tube of a vibrant Fuchsia magellanica hybrid: a saturated, slightly cool deep pink-magenta with the satiny finish of a tubular hummingbird-pollinated flower. Brighter than rose, warmer than orchid, with the bedding-and-basket weight of a plant genus whose flowers gave English the most attention-demanding pink in the spectrum.