October 1, 2026

By Andrea Venn, Ph.D., CGA, JEA, Education Program Specialist, American Gem Society With over 100 hues in its repertoire, Tourmaline has been dubbed the “chameleon gem,” and one source of tourmaline, Madagascar, is home to more than half of the chameleon species on Earth (Sisk, 2011). The late Empress Dowager of China, Tz’u-hsi (Cixi), loved tourmaline, especially pink, so much that China ordered tons of it from the mines in San Diego County, California, for gemstones and beads (Newman, 2014). In Sinhalese, tourmaline is called turmali or toramalli, meaning “mixed,” because it has often been confused with other gemstones and