text: Euhedral crystals (also known as idiomorphic or automorphic crystals) are those that are well-formed, with sharp, easily recognised  faces. The opposite is anhedral (also known as xenomorphic or allotriomorphic): a rock with an anhedral texture is composed of mineral grains that have no well-formed crystal faces or cross-section shape in thin section. Anhedral crystal growth occurs in a competitive environment with no free space for the formation of crystal faces. An intermediate texture with some crystal face-formation is termed subhedral (also known as hypidiomorphic or hypautomorphic).
  Crystals that grow from cooling liquid magma typically do not form smooth faces or sharp crystal outlines. As magma cools, the crystals grow and eventually touch each other, preventing crystal faces from forming properly or at all.
  When snowflakes crystallize, they do not touch each other. Thus, snowflakes form euhedral, six-sided twinned crystals. In rocks, the presence of euhedral crystals may signify that they formed early in the crystallization of liquid magma or perhaps crystallized in a cavity or vug, without steric hindrance, or spatial restrictions, from other crystals.