Mineral variety Healing crystal

Dendritic Opal

✦ The Moss Opal ✦

Crystal lore: 🦋 Transformation 🌳 Grounding 💗 Love

Also known as: Moss opal

Variety of Opal.

Dendritic Opal specimen — Dendritic opal (29816456982).jpg · Wikimedia Commons (see file page for author & license)

📜 Key facts

Age	Varies
Origin & sources	Mexico, Australia and the USA.
Composition	Common opal with black manganese-oxide dendrites ('moss opal'). Opal is hydrated amorphous silica (SiO₂·nH₂O), Mohs 5.5–6.5.

How it forms

Silica-rich water seeped into cracks, cavities and fossils, then slowly evaporated. Tiny silica spheres settled out. In precious opal they are stacked in a neat, regular grid that diffracts light into play-of-colour. In common opal they are jumbled.

Mineral data: see Opal.

🌍 Where it's found

Type locality
Notable source / deposit
Country of origin

Marker positions are approximate (region or locality level). Type localities from Wikidata; notable sources curated by Crystopedia.

✨ Metaphysical & Folklore

These are traditional and folk beliefs from crystal lore. They are not scientific or medical claims – crystals are not a substitute for professional care.

Opal with fern-like dendrites (moss opal) is linked in lore to growth and connection to nature.