Clean ’em and dry ’em
A Manganese Dendrite from the field should be cleaned with water and a brush. 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. Some, cleaning washes off part of the picture. You just gotta know from experience. For white backgroud stones, cleaning may not help, or even make them worse.
That’s 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.)
