Inesite with Calcite

A most attractive specimen of apricot orange Inesite crystals and crystalline botryoidal developments are aggregated over a long and narrow matrix of creamy, slightly pinkish translucent Calcite crystals from the Wessels mine in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.  Inesite is a rare hydrous calcium manganese silicate and forms spiky tabular crystals of an elongated acicular habit in tight spherical rosettes of up to 1 cm in diameter.  This is a showy large miniature from Wessels and will sit comfortably in any good Kalahari suite.