Live Tarragon
Live Tarragon (#9DE38F) is a soft green with a cool character. It leans cool, sitting on the blue, green, and violet side of the wheel. Quiet and dependable, a fit for product UI and data visualization. Its HSL profile (110°, 60%, 73%) places it in the balanced band at a light lightness. It works as a background wash, large-area fill, or soft illustration tone. Add a darker ink of the same hue when you need type over it. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Old English libban, to live — used as a color word since the nineteenth century for hues that read as active or animate. Live wire, live color: the implication is luminance combined with the optical impression of internal motion. Sits in the bright-bucket center alongside vivid and vibrant.
Artemisia dracunculus, the French tarragon — small narrow-leaved relative of wormwood whose volatile oil tastes faintly of anise. The color refers to fresh tarragon leaves on the stem: a saturated, slightly muted green with the matte finish of a Composite-family leaf surface. Cooler than basil, lighter than spinach, with the kitchen specificity of a herb that defines béarnaise and a French roast chicken.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.