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June's Birthstone
“The pearl is the queen of gems and the gem of queens.”
Happy June birthdays! Once thought to be the tears of mermaids, pearls have been one of the world's most prized of gems for their beauty, luster, and rarity. Less than one in every 10,000 wild oysters contain a pearl, created by the oyster's natural defense to sequester any accidentally ingested bit of sand or grit. The most common color for natural pearls is white, cream or gray, but they may also be found in shades of purple, black, pink, green, champagne, chocolate, blue and lavender! Some natural pearls even exhibit an iridescent multicolour rainbow effect! Scottish pearls (also known as baroque pearls) come from freshwater mussels and have a rounded but irregular shape, and have been prized since the time of Julius Caesar, whose preference for British pearls, as chronicled by Roman historian Seutonius, is cited as one of the main reasons for invading Britain! Scottish pearls are found in both the Scottish and English crown jewels! 👑 🦪
The birthstone of June is the pearl (along with the moonstone and alexandrite).
All shelled mollusks can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within its mantle folds, but the great majority of these "pearls" are not valued as gemstones. The prized "nacreous" pearls, are primarily produced by two groups of molluskan bivalves or clam and are made from nacre, the same living process used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell.
The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque or freshwater pearls, can occur.
The most valuable pearls occur spontaneously in the wild, but are extremely rare. These wild pearls are referred to as natural pearls.
The unique luster of pearls depends upon the reflection, refraction, and diffraction of light from the translucent layers. Pearls, both natural cultured, occur in a wide variety of colors. The most familiar colors are white and cream, but black, grey, and silver are also fairly common. The palette of pearl colors extends to every hue with the rarer pinks and lavenders occurring predominately in freshwater pearls.
Pearls were one of the attractions which drew Julius Caesar to Britain. The pearls sought were, for the most part, freshwater pearls from mussels. Pearling was banned in the U.K. in 1998 due to the endangered status of river mussels. Discovery and publicity about the sale for a substantial sum of the found Abernathy pearl from the River Tay (which has its own tartan) resulted in heavy exploitation of mussel colonies during the 1970s and 80s by amateur pearl hunters. When pearling was permitted it was carried on mainly by Scottish Travellers who found that the pearls varied from river to river, with the River Oykel in the Highlands being noted for the finest rose-pink pearls. Currently, there are only two firms in Scotland that are licensed to sell pre-1998 freshwater pearls.
By designer Carol A.L. Martin, this tartan uses shades of naturally occurring pearls.
For more fascinating facts about pearls, click the coloured strands!