Guizhou Province

Guizhou — purple fluorite and gypsum flowers

Guizhou Province in southwest China is one of the country's major fluorite producers, and its low-temperature carbonate terrane also yields a parallel stream of delicate gypsum: selenite "flowers," popcorn textures, and acicular sprays.

What Guizhou is known for

• Purple fluorite — cubic, fan-shaped, color-zoned, and the distinctive etched "QR-code" patterned faces
• Deep-purple cubic clusters and octahedral forms
• Gypsum flowers and popcorn gypsum in white, peach, and purple tones
• Pink manganocalcite with hemimorphite
• White acicular aragonite

Typical specimen style

Two contrasting families: geometric purple fluorite where surface pattern and zoning carry the interest, and fragile, sculptural gypsum where form is everything. The "QR-code" fluorite — natural etched grid patterns on cube faces — has become a recognizable Guizhou signature.

Collector value

Patterned and strongly zoned fluorite leads the price ladder; gypsum flowers are valued on completeness — unbroken petal structures are the hard part. Both families offer strong display value at accessible prices.

From our inventory

Browse all Guizhou specimens or the fluorite and gypsum guides.

Wanshan and Chinese cinnabar

Guizhou is also the home of Chinese cinnabar. The Wanshan Mercury Ore Field near Tongren, in the east of the province, holds roughly half of China's mercury reserves and gave the area its name as the country's “mercury capital.” Its mines — Wanshan, Yanwuping and others — produced most of the fine Chinese cinnabar that reached the world market, prized for deep brick-red crystals with a brilliant adamantine lustre and sharp penetration twins, often on white dolomite with barite. (Cinnabar is a mercury sulfide — a specimen to enjoy on the shelf and handle with simple care.)