Clean ’em and dry ’em
A Manganese Dendrite from the field should be cleaned with water only, unless it is covered in dirt. Then you can gently brush it off under running water. Then dried in the sun for several hours, making sure to dry all sides.
Dendrites can also be varnished with a variety of paints made specially for rocks. For most darker colored dendrites, this improves them, sometimes drastically. For some dendrites, cleaning washes off part of the picture. You just gotta know from experience. For white backgroud stones, varnishing may not help, or even make them worse.
That’s it.
Note:
Some Manganese dentrites fade with age. From water or humidity, temperature changes, sunlight…. Who knows?
Varnishing them on all sides will help protect the rock, but of course, it can not be removed. The rock can still be cut to shape it, but attempting to remove the varnish over the picture will probably damage it.
You can pick them up, turn them around, put them in heat or freezing cold and nothing will happen. Just don’t drop them. Not good.
Unless it breaks along a fault line, and you get an even better picture, or even a double!
On SOME rocks, they will split apart when wet. The water gets between the layers and you can just lift one layer off. Probably best to keep your rocks dry. (unless you’re purposely trying to split them.)
See. It happens all the time.
