50 Shades of... Brown Trivia Quiz

Answer: vicuña

A native of the Andean region, the vicuña (Lama vicugna) is the smallest member of the family Camelidae, and one of two species of wild South American camelids (the other being the guanaco). Protected by law in the Incan Empire, vicuñas were in danger of extinction because of overhunting before legal protection was restored in 1979 - allowing their numbers to rebound substantially. These delicate-looking animals live at high altitudes, and are adapted to the harsh environment - with deeply cloven feet to walk on rocky ground, and a thick coat of soft tawny brown and white wool to withstand the cold, especially at night. Vicuña wool is one of the finest and rarest in the world, commanding very high prices.

The vicuña is Peru's national animal, also appearing on the country's coat of arms. It is considered the wild ancestor of the domesticated alpaca, whose wool is also highly prized - while the guanaco is the wild counterpart of the llama. The dromedary is also known as Arabian or one-humped camel.

As a colour, camel is a light shade of yellowish-brown, often used in reference to overcoats or other items of clothing made at least in part with the wool of the Bactrian camel. Fallow, the colour of withered foliage or sandy soil, is a very similar shade.

Answer: Nahuatl

Though possibly of even older origin, the words cacao, cocoa and chocolate come from Classical Nahuatl, the language spoken in the Aztec Empire - though they entered English and other European languages via Spanish in the early 16th century. A language of the Uto-Aztecan family, Nahuatl is still spoken today by about 1.5 million people in various parts of Mexico. The most widely accepted etymology of chocolate is from "xocolatl", meaning "bitter drink" - which is what the ancestor of our hot chocolate really was, since it was not sweetened. Cacao and cocoa, on the other hand, are derived from "cacahuatl", which referred to the beans of the cocoa tree. Other etymologies have been also suggested, but the Mesoamerican origin of the words is undisputed.

With its warm reddish undertones, chocolate is one of the most attractive shades of brown. It commonly evokes the colour of milk chocolate, a lighter shade of brown than dark chocolate - which can look almost black, especially in varieties with a high cocoa content. As a web colour, chocolate (also referred to as cocoa brown) is even lighter, and has a more pronounced reddish tinge - similar to cinnamon.

Of the three languages listed as wrong answers, Quechua and Guarani are spoken in South America, while Inuit is spoken in the Arctic regions of North America.

Answer: Mont Blanc

Named for the highest peak in the Alps, shared by Italy and France, Mont Blanc may have been created in either of these two countries - though some sources report Paris as the place where it was invented in the mid-19th century. It is very popular not only in various European countries, but also in Hong Kong and Japan. Mont Blanc is made by pushing sweetened chestnut purée through a sieve or similar implement, so as to obtain vermicelli shapes (as shown in the photo). The chestnut vermicelli are then arranged in a mound shape (often on a meringue base), and garnished with whipped cream - hence the dessert's name. In East Asia, however, Mont Blanc is rarely decorated with cream, and other fruits than chestnuts are often used.

Chestnut as a colour is often employed to refer to a rich, reddish-brown shade of human hair, as well as a coat colour of horses. The word "maroon" for a brownish shade of crimson comes from the French name for the chestnut, "marron", which also means brown (like"marrón" in Spanish smf "marrone" in Italian).

Answer: red

In the Middle Ages, russet was a coarse woollen cloth dyed with woad and madder, usually worn by the lower classes. The combination of dark blue woad and rose madder produced a subdued shade of greyish- or reddish-brown. Now the word russet is generally applied to a phenomenon in which the skin of apples or pears (as shown in the photo) develops rougher, reddish-brown patches. While russeting is often regarded as undesirable, affecting both the fruit's appearance and its storage life, there are some naturally-occurring varieties of russet apples that are instead appreciated. Russet potatoes, on the other hand, are large and oblong-shaped, with dark, reddish-brown skin and dry, white flesh with a mild flavour - highly suitable for mashing or baking.

The word russet comes from the Latin "russus", meaning "red" or "reddish" - often used to describe people with red hair. It is etymologically related to "ruber", the standard Latin word for "red".

Answer: port

Produced in the Douro Valley of northern Portugal, near the city of Porto (also known as Oporto), port is a fortified wine made with a blend of grapes grown in that region. This wine, which in the early 18th century became very popular in Britain as an after-dinner drink, is typically sweet and red. The most common variety, ruby port, is aged in the bottle, while tawny port is aged in wooden casks, which exposes the wine to oxidation and evaporation. This aging process imparts a nutty (rather than fruity) flavour to the wine, whose colour turns from deep red to a mellow golden-brown colour (as shown in the photo). Tawny ports can be aged in wood for up to 40 years, and can be rather expensive.

Called "tenné" in heraldry, tawny is a word of Anglo-French origin that originally meant "similar to tanned leather", referring to the yellowish- or orange-brown colour of tanned hides. A similar shade (though somewhat lighter) is fulvous, often found in the names of animals, plants or fungi. The word tan (which, as a colour, is more like a dark beige) comes from "tannum", the Latin for oak bark, which was used in the tanning process.

Answer: Ethiopia

Though its supposed discovery by Ethiopian goatherd Kaldi in the 9th century is no more than a legend, it is likely that the coffee plant (Coffea sp.) originated in the Ethiopian Highlands (where it is still widely cultivated), and was introduced from there into the Arabian Peninsula across the Red Sea. The first reliable account of coffee drinking, dating from the 15th century, comes from Yemen. A major port for the coffee trade was Mokha in western Yemen, which gave its name to a prized variety of beans. From Yemen, coffee soon reached North Africa and other parts of the Middle East, and then - in the late 17th century - Europe, where it became immensely popular.

As a colour, coffee ranges from the tan of café au lait to the deep, almost black brown of café noir - through the reddish-brown of roasted coffee beans, as shown in the photo. In some countries in the Eastern Mediterranean - where coffee is widely consumed - the word for brown is synonymous with coffee: "kafe" in Albanian, "kafé" in Greek, and "kahverengi" (literally "coffee-coloured") in Turkish.

Answer: husk

The fruits of walnut trees (genus Juglans) are similar to drupes (stone fruit), in that they have a fibrous involucre - called a husk - that surrounds the nut. These green husks (also called hulls) open when the fruit is ripe, revealing the nut inside (as shown in the photo). Walnut husks are rich in phytochemicals, in particular the organic compound juglone, which has been used for centuries to make brown dyes for fabric and hair - as well as a durable, dark brown ink that was widely employed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and is still prized today for its archival qualities.

Walnut ink comes either in liquid form, or as crystals that need to be mixed with water before use. Recipes for making walnut ink at home can be found on the Internet, though they come with the warning that any surfaces and implements involved in the process (not to mention hands) are likely to be stained dark for a long time.

Answer: Second Boer War

Though a loanword from Urdu, one of Pakistan's official languages, khaki originally comes from "khâk", the Persian word for "dust". The term has been used in English since the mid-19th century, when the colour was introduced for the uniforms of the Corps of Guides of the British Indian Army, and were later adopted by all regiments serving in the Indian subcontinent. Made of a twilled cotton fabric in a light, yellowish tan colour, those uniforms were much more practical in hot and arid regions than the redcoats that had been traditionally used by British soldiers. Though first used officially by British troops in Ethiopia in 1868, the first mass-scale employ of khaki uniforms occurred during the Second Boer War, fought at the very turn of the 20th century in present-day South Africa between the British Empire and the two Boer republics.

Khaki comes in various tones: light khaki, khaki, dark khaki, and khaki green (also known as olive drab). As web colours, they are considered shades of yellow or green rather than brown. The dark khaki uniform jacket of a Lieutenant in the 7th London Regiment dates from WW1. The plural noun khakis also refers to trousers made of twilled cotton cloth (also known as chino cloth), often worn as part of smart casual attire.

The First Opium War was fought in China a few decades earlier, in 1839-1842.

Answer: iron oxide

Like other varieties of ochre, sienna and umber are earth pigments - that is, naturally occurring minerals that have been used as pigments since prehistoric times. Both contain iron and manganese oxides: iron oxides are responsible for the reddish tinge of these pigments, which is brought out by heating. The most common form of iron oxide is rust, which can be regarded as a shade of brown, red, or orange. The higher content of manganese oxide in umber accounts for its darker brown of raw umber, while raw sienna is a lighter, yellowish shade, due to the presence of limonite (iron hydroxide). Both pigments are named after Italian locations: umber after the central region of Umbria, and sienna after the Tuscan city of Siena.

The painting in the photo, titled "Self-Portrait with Two Circles" (c.1665-1669), is one of more than 40 self-portraits painted by 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn - who was a true master in the use of brown-toned pigments, especially in his later work. In this self-portrait, the painter skillfully employed ochre, sienna and umber - both in their raw and burnt state - to create the rich, complex brown tones that have become almost synonymous with his art.

Answer: Namib

Often described as a cold coastal desert, the Namib Desert stretches for over 2,000 km (1,200 mi) along the southwestern coast of Africa, from southern Angola to northwestern South Africa through Namibia, the country that was named after it. The Namib is one of the oldest and driest deserts in the world, along with the Atacama Desert in western South America - having endured arid or semi-arid conditions for at least 55 million years. This unique environment - characterized by frequent, dense fogs along the coast, which can be extremely hazardous to navigation - also boasts some of the world's highest sand dunes, reaching heights of 300 m (980 ft.). The most remarkable of these dunes are found in the southern part of the desert, around the salt and clay pan of Sossusvlei, where the photo was taken: because of the high concentration of iron in the sand, the colour of the dunes ranges from pale pink to intense reddish-orange.

One of the web colours, sandy brown is a warm shade of orange-brown. Desert sand, on the other hand, is much lighter, while sand is a deep shade of beige with yellowish or grayish tones - similar to ecru and khaki.