Roundel (heraldry) "pommes" is now more common. The term for a red roundel, "torteau", is typically pluralised in the French manner as "torteaux" rather than "torteaus", although "torteaus" is occasionally seen. A "pellet" may also be called an "ogress". In modern French blazonry, a roundel of either metal ("or" or "argent") is a "besant", and a roundel of any colour (dark tincture) is a "torteau", with the tincture specified. However, an alternate naming system has been used for the non-mental tinctures, with similar terms as English heraldry ("guse" for "gules", "heurte" for "azure", "ogoesse" for "sable", "somme", "volet" or "pomme" for "vert",
Heraldry or the colour of nature. This does not seem to have been done in the earliest heraldry, but examples are known from at least the seventeenth century. While there can be no objection to the occasional depiction of objects in this manner, the overuse of charges in their natural colours is often cited as indicative of bad heraldic practice. The much-maligned practice of landscape heraldry, which flourished in the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century, made extensive use of such non-heraldic colours. One of the most important conventions of heraldry is the so-called "rule