Tree Agate Crystal Bracelet

Tree agate is a white-to-grey chalcedony - microcrystalline quartz, SiO₂, Mohs 7 - holding green dendrites that branch through it like ferns or trees. The "tree" is entirely mineral: manganese and iron oxides that crept along fine cracks and branched as they grew, before the chalcedony sealed around them.

It is the opaque white cousin of moss agate - where moss agate floats its green in translucent silica, tree agate sets it against a solid, milky-white ground, so the branching reads sharp and clear.

Because the dendrites grew freely, no two beads carry the same pattern; some hold a single spreading branch, others a dense thicket of green.

Asked often

Is there real plant inside?
No - nothing organic. The branching green is manganese and iron oxide, minerals that grew in tree-like forms before the chalcedony sealed. Plant-like, but stone throughout.

How is it different from moss agate?
Both are dendritic chalcedony. Moss agate floats its green in translucent stone; tree agate sets it against an opaque milky-white ground, so the branches read crisp and bold.

Why is every bead different?
The dendrites grew freely along cracks, so each bead holds its own pattern. The variation is the stone, not a fault.

How do I care for it?
Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth and dry. Hard-wearing at Mohs 7 and stable in daylight; keep the cord dry.

1. Worn on either wrist, over the hand, on a durable elastic cord.
2. Wipe with a soft, slightly damp cloth and dry.
3. Hard-wearing at Mohs 7 - no special handling beyond keeping the cord dry.

Many traditions rinse or air their stones from time to time; that is a matter of preference, and the rest is yours.

The elastic cord lasts longest kept dry - remove before swimming, bathing, or applying scent. Do not soak.

• Stone: Tree agate · dendritic chalcedony
• Composition: SiO₂ with manganese and iron oxides
• Hardness: Mohs 7
• Character: White ground · green branching · each unique
• Treatment: None · undyed
• Band: Durable elastic cord
• Origin: India
• Care: Wipe with a soft cloth · keep the cord dry

Dendritic stones have fascinated collectors since antiquity - Pliny wrote of agates marked with the figures of trees, and lapidaries across the centuries set them as miniature landscapes into rings, seals, and snuffboxes. Tree agate is the boldest of them, its green drawn sharp on white.

In several traditions the tree-marked stone was carried as a token of the gardener and the growing field - named here as what people believed. The branches are mineral grown in stone; what they bring to mind is the wearer’s.