GREEN GEMSTONES: 10 Most Celebrated

Green gemstones held allure to human beings since antiquity. From Europe to China, this appreciation of green gems has not relented through the millennia. What are the most beautiful green stones of all time? Follow the countdown below.

10th Most Loved of Green Gemstones: Malachite

Romans warmly recommended malachite for signets. Malachite is an opaque stone of a deep green shade. Although opaque, malachite’s color can be quite brilliant and even richer than emerald, which is already reputed to be the most intense of green. What differentiates malachite from other green gemstones is its undulating bands. These bands can be lighter or darker than malachite’s body tone.

The weakness of malachite lies in its hardness. A copper carbonate, malachite is a soft stone, with its hardness reaching only between 3.5 and 4 out of 10 in the Mohs scale. Indeed, a knife can scratch malachite.

9th. Aventurine

While the ancients did not know of aventurine, they were somehow able to describe the green stone in their lapidaries. For instance, Pliny of 1st-century Rome spoke of a translucent green stone with specks resembling salt. The ancients called this green gem jasper. Moreover, the old description of the stone known today as chrysoprase is even truer of aventurine than it is of the plain green chalcedony.

A shimmering appearance characterizes aventurine, which is a translucent variety of chalcedony. The green stone gets this shimmering effect from platy inclusions, usually consisting of mica. Jewelers call the stone’s glittery brilliance aventurescence.

While available in other colors, aventurine occurs mostly in green, usually due to the inclusion of fuchsite mica. Green aventurine varies in intensity between light, bright and dark green. The shade can also be blue-green. Aventurine’s shimmering brilliance makes the stone stand out as a green gem.

8th. Jade

It is not only the Chinese who appreciate jade. Western cultures were aware of jade, but did not identify the gem separately and simply classified jade as a variety of jasper.

Jade is a stone with a milky hue most popular in green. While most people think of all jade stones as the same mineral, jade in fact consists of two chemically separate minerals. Jadeite is of a richer color, while nephrite is of a milkier hue. In highest esteem is the rare translucent jade of a rich emerald green. This green stone the Chinese call feits’ ui or “kingfisher plumes.”

7th Most Loved of Green Gemstones: Plasma

Plasma is a green gemstone popular for seals and engraved gems in antiquity. White specks resembling salt sprinkles this green stone, which is a variety of chalcedony. Rome had great use of plasma. For one, they used plasma for an engraved image of the goddess of beauty herself, Venus. The sea-green color of plasma appropriately brings out the goddess, with the white spots constituting the foam from which she was born.

A plasma’s specks can also be yellow or black. When the drops on a plasma is red, such stone is called bloodstone, also known as heliotrope. Indeed, bloodstone is regarded as a variety of plasma distinguished by its red spots.

6th. Green Sapphire

The ancients often confused green sapphire with emerald. Having been imported from Asia, green sapphire is also known as Oriental emerald. In shade, this green stone is described as “peacock-colored,” in reference to the hue of the peacock’s tailfeathers. The best green sapphire is one that is clear and whose color is evenly spread, without showing the faintest tinge of any other color.

Green sapphire is extremely hard. Harder than emerald, sapphire is second only to diamond in hardness, scoring 9 out of 10 in the Mohs scale. Indeed resistant to wear and tear, the green corundum is quite suitable for jewelry. Green sapphire is often less appreciated, however, what with the popularity of emerald that often overshadows the green corundum.

5th. Moss Agate

Frederick Kunz remarks that no stone used in jewelry in the United States is cheaper, more beautiful or more plentiful than moss agate. Moss agate is translucent or transparent quartz distinguished by moss-like green inclusions. This variety of chalcedony occurs when branching forms of green inclusion penetrate clear quartz or white chalcedony. The dendritic inclusion gives the stone the appearance of containing vegetable remains or moss, hence the name moss agate.

To this day, the finest moss agates come from India. Not all Indian agates were moss agate, but the ancients highly appreciated those that were, and even deemed these agates the most excellent.

One unique use of moss agate in jewelry is landscape ornaments, where jewelers cut the stone in a manner that depicts a certain landscape. This is possible due to the plant-like green inclusions in the gemstone that spreads irregularly against its white body. For instance, jewelers cut moss agate to display the semblance of a lush grove sitting against an endless snowfield, or a snowfield sprawling beneath a towering green mountain. Indeed, moss agate can be even more beautiful a piece of art than a piece of mineral.

4th Most Loved of Green Gemstones: Chrysoprase

Chrysoprase is quartz in pure green. This green stone is also known simply as prase, so called from its resemblance to the color of leek, prasius in Latin. Since prase is quartz, the green stone can occur as a transparent crystal, which resembles the emerald. Indeed, some of the best prase are equal to emerald in tint, though not in luster.

As a variety of quartz, prase is quite hard, rating 7 out of 10 in the Mohs scale. Today, the name chrysoprase applies to the entirely green variety of chalcedony, ranging in shade from pale apple green to deep green. Prase, on the other hand, is usually reserved for green quartz of a dark shade. Both green gemstones owe their color to the inclusion of nickel.

3rd. Aquamarine

The most highly esteemed beryls in antiquity were those that reproduce the pure green of the sea. These green gemstones are the aquamarine, whose name means “seawater.” As the etymology suggests, aquamarine in antiquity refers to the sea-green beryl, a transparent gem that is blue-green in color.

Skilled craftsmen cut beryls to a smooth hexagonal shape. Their color, which is deadened by the dullness of an unbroken surface, is enhanced by the reflection from the facets. The Indians in particular were extraordinarily fond of elongated beryls. They prefer to shape beryls into long prisms, simply because length is their most attractive feature. Incidentally, beryls naturally occur as hexagonal prisms.

Though esteemed as a blue-green gem, aquamarine is more popular today as a blue stone, making it less important among green gemstones.

2nd. Peridot

Pliny of 1st-century Rome speaks of peridot as a greenish variety of its own. When first discovered, the Romans preferred the green stone to any other. Unlike other gems, peridot comes in only one color, though varying in shade. In general, the color of peridot tends to resemble the tint of leek. The most valuable of peridot are those ranging in shade from lime to olive.

Peridot is unique from other green gemstones in displaying a color that verges on yellow. This was the reason why peridot also went by the name chrysolite, meaning “golden stone.” The weakness of peridot lies in its hardness, which is at most 7 out of 10 on the Mohs scale. Pliny noted this by saying that peridot is the only precious stone affected by an iron file, where others have to be smoothed with Naxian stone and emery. Peridot also wears away with use.

Most Loved of Green Gemstones: Emerald

There is no green in existence more intense than the emerald, so speak the ancients of the stone. To the ancients, no color has a more pleasing appearance than the color of emerald. Although they gazed eagerly at young plants and leaves, they look at emeralds with all the more pleasure, because there is nothing whatsoever that is more intensely green than the emerald.

Indeed, people adore emerald for its transparent green color. This refreshing clarity has been the subject of many a praises. Whether in sunlight, shadow or lamplight, the emerald always shone gently. Owing to the ease with which light passes through it, emerald allows the vision to penetrate further to its depth, in the same way that water so pleasantly does.

Because of its beauty, the people of Rome decreed that emeralds must be preserved in their natural state, and forbade engraving on the green gemstones. In any case, emerald was too hard to be affected by engravers, except with the use of diamond, corundum or another beryl.

In fact, emerald in fact is a variety of the same mineral that brings us the blue-green aquamarine. Distinguished from other beryls simply by its color, emerald is beryl that occurred in green. The same color distinguishes emerald from all other gems. It is this deep green color that endeared emerald to people across the world.

Emerald Across the World

A flawless emerald that came in the shade of moss was a priceless gem in India. Besides moss and fresh grass, emerald’s color also recalled that of the peacock’s tail. Such emeralds were superior. In Mexico, the emerald bore the name quetzalitzli or “stone of the quetzal,” since the gem reproduces the brilliant green of the quetzal’s plumes. To this day, emerald represents the color of green stones.

However, although emerald was famed for the intensity of its color, the best of emeralds were not always intensely green. In history, the pale emerald was more popular. India echoes this preference in the shade of the green gem. A stone of uniform color that is excessively light yet illuminates the place when exposed to the sun, an emerald that is not extremely green yet the splendor of which looks like the play of lightning among fresh grass — such an emerald was deemed the very best of its kind. These light-colored stones were most esteemed in India and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, perfect emeralds are extremely rare. The gem usually comes with surface fissure. Oil coating hides this defects.

Green Gemstones’ Most Celebrated

To this day, emerald remains the most important of green gems. The ancients and modern people agree that the emerald is the most beautiful of green gemstones on earth.

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51 Types of Green Gemstones for Jewelry

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