Garish Pollen
Garish Pollen (#C0E26B) is a true lime with a vibrant character. It holds its own as a focal accent, carrying visual weight without tipping into neon territory. Its HSL profile (77°, 67%, 65%) places it in the balanced band at a mid lightness. It works across type, buttons, and borders, saturated enough to feel deliberate but balanced enough to not fight the rest of the palette. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary indigo. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Middle English garen, to stare — adjectival suffix -ish. As a color modifier, garish implies a saturated-and-eye-stunning-and-overdone quality, the bright color of Las-Vegas-and-Coney-Island over-the-top neon-marquee display. Sits at the bright-and-flamboyant end of the grid, parallel to gaudy and lurid in usage.
The male gametophyte of seed plants — fine yellow dust released from anthers and carried by wind, water, or the legs of foraging bees. The color refers to the pollen load on a honeybee returning to the hive: a saturated, slightly orange-shifted yellow that varies by floral source from sunflower gold to dandelion deep. The same chemistry that yellows car windshields in the spring is what colors honey and beeswax.
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.