The mineral was named by Clifford Frondel and Jun Ito in honor of Sterling Brown Hendricks, who studied micas.
[2] It has pleochroic attributes, which is an optical phenomenon that makes minerals to be seen a different color depending on the axis it is inspected on.
[5] It mostly consists of oxygen (38.92%), zinc (18.56%), silicon (15.37%) and manganese (10.02%), but otherwise contains potassium (7.13%), aluminium (7.11%), magnesium (2.46%) and a negligible amount of hydrogen (0.41%).
[6] It can appear only in metamorphosed stratiform zinc deposits, in irregular lens or sheet like skarn bodies.
[2] The mineral can be found at the Sterling hill as well, although it is much rarer due to the higher iron and magnesium concentrations.