Morning all, here is an interesting site that discusses colour terms. Many terms are based on the latin root, which for plant people is positively interesting. http://phrontistery.50megs.com/colours.html Also, another site for understanding colour/pigment. http://www.brianmahieu.com/optical_comp.html > Jane McGary wrote: > > > I wonder if a multilingual horticultural color term chart would be useful > > to many people? > I had started work on an international definitions table about two years ago, but found that the variations in terms was much too complex. Apparently, perceptions are deeply rooted in local cultures, and less in language. I encounter this every day, as an artist, and it is clear that one cannot bring the world to have a common understanding of colour. Often, colour names are quite local, such as periwinkel, which hardly a European has heard of. Mauve is an interesting term, as it is often used for a relatively broad group of greyed-purples/ greyed-lavenders. I do not have a proplem with this, as colour perception is largely based on ambient light. This becomes especially clear in the dustier tones, which become indefinable under low light, such as in the typical home or shaded garden corner. Under the sun, the tones become clearer. Mauve is common in the garden, just look at the fading flowers of many Helleborus orientalis hybrids or the flower heads of fading Hortensia. They are truly a wonderful mauve. (personal favourite in the garden) Puce is another strange term derived from the French for flea! It refers to the colour of their blood, which is a pinky-purple. (someone must have been very bored to make this observation!) In a way, this is very similar to mauve, but moving to the violet spectrum, instead of into the blue-purples. Many colours are simply difficult to pin down, such as peach. In the English (UK) version, it is quite pink, while in othere languages it can be quite yellow. Interestingly, one can trace the developement of this relatively new colour: peach > peche > persik > pfirsich > persia, the land from where it first came to Europe! Apricot leads back to Armenica/Armenia. Generally speaking, apricot is the more yellow tinged pink/rose, which peach is more soft orange tinged pink. Then there is melon! And let me warn you, in Germany their flesh is chartreuse! I was a different cultivar as in the English/French-speaking lands. Although I use an RHS colour chart, yes, expensive, but an excellent and world-wide known reference, there is still notable variation in plant colour due to garden culture and climate. One of the reasons is the plant pigments themselves. The water-soluble anthocyanins, which are responsible for the reds-purples-blues, are very dependant on temperature, pH and sometines metallic ions in the soil. Without getting into the rather complex chemistry which lies behind pigments and which I do not fully grasp in any case, we can safely say, natural colour variation based on environment is large. Couple this with the subjectivity of colour perception and we do not seem to come much further, which is why I do prefer the RHS colour chart. At least it sets a standard which is numeric and not filled with prosaic definitions (I love extoling the nuances of colour, but it's not very accurate!). This said, I'm certainly not against attempting to collect terms and co-ordinating them to visuable definitions, I just question how useful it would be, other than to feed our imaginations. I do enjoy discussing it! (if you hadn't noticed LOL) Ciao, Jamie Vande Cologne