Chinese Desert Rose Gongshi on Hardwood Base

Bladed crystals stack up into a tall rough peak, like a mountain made of folded paper.

This desert rose gongshi comes from the Gobi Desert, China. It is gypsum crystal on a hard wood base. Desert roses grow when gypsum crystallizes in damp sand, trapping grains among its thin plates, and in China striking natural stones like this are displayed as gongshi, or scholar's rocks. This cluster is taller than it is wide, built of countless overlapping rosettes in a soft sandy tan. Some plates fan out like feathers, and others curl into dense tufts. It rises from a dark, plain, two-tiered rectangular base. It is 11 inches wide, 7.25 deep and 18.5 high.

Geology, practicing its origami.