Coronas containing Ca-amphibole with aluminous minerals have been characterised optically and by scanning electron microscopy, analytical transmission electron microscopy and electron-probe microanalysis. The layers nearest to plagioclase are amphibole + epidote + kyanite, followed by amphibole + epidote + staurolite + spinel. These assemblages are consistent with water-undersaturated conditions, possibly at lower metamorphic grade than the commoner assemblage amphibole + spinel. Observed mineral proportions and compositions were used in a seven-layer model of steady-state, diffusion-controlled growth with local equilibrium. This model is not fully realistic, because the observed amphibole is strongly zoned from tschermakitic to actinolitic away from plagioclase, suggesting disequilibrium. However, the four-mineral layer has been successfully modelled assuming local equilibrium, with diffusion coefficients L_ii larger for i = FeO and MgO than for SiO₂, AlO_3/2, CaO and FeO_3/2. Retarded grain-boundary diffusion of the latter components is explicable by crystal-chemical effects. The number of minerals per layer is constrained by a modified form of the metasomatic phase rule of Korzhinskii, with the role of ‘inert’ components played by relatively immobile ones (having relatively small fluxes and relatively small diffusion coefficients).