Dravite on rubellite

The Khetchel site in Burma has been renowned for decades for its finds of tourmalines with a unique botryoidal form. It is the only known site in the world that produces these “mushroom-like” tourmalines. Despite the very unfavorable geopolitical situation, mining of these remarkable crystals has been successfully resumed after a long hiatus, much to the delight of the collecting community. In most cases, the crystals have a schorl core encrusted with rubellite. A new development from the past year is the discovery of specimens with the same shape, but where the red or pink rubellite is partially overgrown with gray-green dravite.