BY LESLIE REGO
I am always impressed by how many different names exist for the color yellow. We use all of these names to describe the yellows that occur during our autumn, but it is interesting how many of these names come from faraway places or refer to items we do not have in our surroundings. A good example is amber, a resin mostly found along the Baltic coast. Topaz is another one. We have some topaz in the United States, but it is mainly mined in other countries. There is also lion yellow and canary yellow. Both of these animals are not natural to the United States.
Royal yellow is a curious name because it refers to a yellow that is gold-like. We have had gold mines in the United States, but never royalty, although I can think of a few people who, given half a chance, would refer to themselves as royal. Mustard yellow is a common name, but mustard is mostly grown in Canada, Nepal and Myanmar. Saffron yellow is another popular reference for yellow, but again, saffron is principally harvested in Mediterranean countries. Naples yellow is self-explanatory. Then there is mango yellow, a fruit whose origin comes from distant lands.
Realizing all of the names for yellow that originate from elsewhere, I began to think of names for our autumn yellows that would be ideal for our area. Aspen yellow is a perfect beginning. I am not going to use any other qualifiers because anyone who lives in the Wood River Valley can immediately visualize aspen yellow. We could create river-willow yellow. That should bring about another immediate image. There are a lot of different grasses in the area that turn different shades of yellow. Instead of saying “squirreltail grass turns Naples yellow in the autumn” we could just say “squirreltail grass turns squirreltail color in the autumn!”
Keeping this in mind, we could have rabbitbrush yellow, referring to the intense color of the plant when it is at its height of pollen-producing bloom. Some other yellows would be arrowleaf balsamroot yellow or heartleaf arnica yellow. There are so many yellows in this area it would be easy to coin many new words for different shades of this color.
When I am on an autumn hike and look around and study all of the many nuances of our fall colors, I feel like there is a real dearth of descriptive words to truly describe what I am seeing. I think we should begin to use our local plants as descriptive names to fill in the gaps!
Leslie Rego is an Idaho Press Club award-winning columnist, artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit leslierego.com.