Light to dark blue, indigo-blue. Sometimes multicolored with different shades of blue or white, or with color streaks or stripes. A frequent habit is a deeper colored blue streak running through the center of a crystal. Less commonly colorless, white, gray, green, orange, or black.
Streak
Colorless
Hardness
4.5 - 7
Crystal System
Triclinic
Crystal Forms
and Aggregates
Most often in long and slender bladed crystals. Also in bladed crystal groups, radiating, in veins,reticulated, and in flattened tabular crystals. Rarely twinned in v-shaped butterfly twins.
Transparency
Transparent to translucent
Specific Gravity
3.5 - 3.7
Luster
Vitreous
Cleavage
1,1;2,1
Fracture
Splintery
Tenacity
Brittle
In Group
Silicates; Nesosilicates
Striking Features
Different direction hardness and color.
Environment
In metamorphosed schists and gneisses. Also in granite pegmatites.