Auction Win: Amethyst ‘Flower’

Locality: Boekenhouthoek, Mkobola, Thembisile Hani Local Municipality, Nkangala District Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa

Size: Miniature - 3.5 × 2.3 × 2.7 cm

Here’s a fun hedgehog shaped Amethyst cluster, sitting on a bed of Iron stained Quartz. Deep saturation for the locality.

Amethyst is a purple variety of quartz, with the formula SiO2. The name comes from the Greek word amethystos, and it was first described by Georgius Agricola in 1546. Heated amethyst can turn yellow-orange or brownish, and it is often mistaken for citrine.

Boekenhouthoek, in Mkobola within Thembisile Hani Local Municipality of Mpumalanga, South Africa, is a locality known to collectors as the source of South African “cactus” or “spirit” quartz. The area is especially noted for amethyst, which is the most common color variety, alongside quartz crystals in white, gray, mauve, reddish-purple, brown, and yellow. The quartz specimens come from Bushveld Complex rocks about 70 km northeast of Pretoria, with quartz veins and quartz and amethyst crystals hosted in granophyre of the Rashoop Granophyre Suite. This makes Boekenhouthoek a significant provenance for distinctive quartz specimens that remain of interest to mineral collectors today.