Orchid (color)
Encyclopedia
Purple
Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue, and is classified as a secondary color as the colors are required to create the shade....
color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
that is a representation of the color of the orchid flower.
Various tones of orchid may range from grayish purple to purplish-pink to strong reddish purple.
The first recorded use of orchid as a color name in English was in 1915.
In 1987, orchid was included as one of the X11 colors
X11 color names
In computing, on the X Window System, X11 color names are represented in a simple text file, which maps certain strings to RGB color values. It is shipped with every X11 installation, hence the name, and is usually located in <X11root>/lib/X11/rgb.txt.It is not known who originally compiled...
. After the invention of the world wide web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
in 1991, these became known as the X11 web colors
Web colors
Web colors are colors used in designing web pages, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Hexadecimal color codes begin with a hash ....
.
Derivation
The name originates from the flowers of some species of the vast orchid family (OrchidaceaeOrchidaceae
The Orchidaceae, commonly referred to as the orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family of monocots in the order Asparagales. Along with the Asteraceae, it is one of the two largest families of flowering plants, with between 21,950 and 26,049 currently accepted species,...
), such as Laelia furfuracea
Laelia furfuracea
Laelia furfuracea is a species of orchid endemic to Mexico ....
and Ascocentrum pusillum, which have petals of this color.
The word Orchid derives from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word orchis which means testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
, after the appearance of the roots of plants of the genus Orchis
Orchis
Orchis is a genus in the orchid family . This genus gets its name from the Ancient Greek ὄρχις orchis, meaning "testicle", from the appearance of the paired subterranean tuberoids....
.