This frequent twinning gives rise to characteristic forms, with many re-entrant angles, to which the names "spear pyrites" and "cockscomb pyrites" are applied.
The mineral is also met with in metalliferous veins, though much less frequently than pyrites; for example the "cockscomb pyrites" of the lead mines of Derbyshire and Cumberland.
A range called the Sierra de Chama, which, however, changes its name frequently from place to place, strikes eastward towards British Honduras, and is connected by low hills with the Cockscomb Mountains; another similar range, the Sierra de Santa Cruz, continues east to Cape Cocoli between the Polochic and the Sarstoon; and a third, the Sierra de las Minas or, in its eastern portion, Sierra del Mico, stretches between the Polochic and the Motagua.
Bending south, the Groote river passes through the coast chain by Cockscomb mountain, and being joined by the Kouga, flows on as the Gamtoos to the sea at St Francis Bay.
The floral axis sometimes appears as if formed by several peduncles united together, constituting a fasciated axis, as in the cockscomb, in which the flowers form a peculiar crest at the apex of the flattened peduncles.