Stone of the Month: February 2020"Floral Fantasy"
A cheerful bouquet of flowers comes to mind when viewing this extraordinary stone. For others, it may serve as a reminder of kaleidoscope where small pieces of colored glass or plastic are used in combination with mirrors to create a cacophony of changing colors and designs. This stone is not quiet nor subtle. It is more like the brightly color kimono on a maiko moving silently in the evening through a narrow street in the Gion district of Kyoto.
Japanese peacock stones (Kujaku-ishi) are beautiful Japanese viewing stones, but they are rarely seen by western stone collectors due to their scarcity. They are found only in a small area, about ten square meters, on Mt. Akakura in Neo Valley high in the mountains above Gifu in Gifu prefecture. This collecting site is illustrated in the Japanese language book Chrysanthemum Stones and Peacock Stones Directory. See the library section for more information about this book. Digging stones have exhausted the supply of these stones at this site. The lens of rock where these stones are found is immediately adjacent to the more abundant layer of gray-green stone (Shalstein) that contains chrysanthemum flowers stones. Peacock stones have been collected for many decades because of their colorful and fascinating composition. In rare cases, chrysanthemum flower-like mineral formations are found in peacock stones; however, these are even more scarce. This stone has three well-defined “flowers” and is an exceptional stone. It has been displayed in several exhibitions and was featured in the book Chrysanthemum Stones, The Story of Stone Flowers (2010). This stone is 17 cm wide, 27 cm high, and 7.5 cm deep.
