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Freshwater rice pearls (and other freshwater varieties) have a unique little quality. When they are cultured, farmers don't use a bead as the nucleus to begin forming the pearl. a bit of another mussel's mantle tissue, which is the tissue that secretes mother of pearl. However, I'll bet you didn't know that the pearl farmer can insert more than one bit of mantle into the animal's tissue. That means that one mussel or freshwater oyster can produce up to 50 pearls at once.
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Byron White |