Lively Murk Goldenrod

An adjectival form of life — used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that read as energetic. Lively coral, lively chartreuse: the implication is saturation combined with optical liveliness, the slight visual restlessness of a color that feels animated. Sits at the bright-bucket center.

Old Norse myrkr, darkness-or-obscurity. As a color modifier, murk implies a clouded-and-dim-and-obscured quality, the visual register of fen-and-bog-and-tarn-murk hand-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh murky-and-clouded-and-dim-and-obscured surfaces under fen-and-bog-and-tarn-and-marsh peat-stained-and-clouded-and-dim swamp-and-fen-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to gloom and pall in usage.

Solidago, the late-summer wildflower of North American meadows whose tall sprays of small yellow flowers signal the end of the growing season. The color refers to the flower head at full bloom: a warm, slightly muted yellow-orange with the matte finish of small clustered florets. Cooler than mustard, deeper than dandelion. The state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska, a pollinator magnet, and the original native dye for early American homespun.