A group of extrusive igneous rocks, typically porphyritic and commonly exhibiting flow texture, with phenocrysts of quartz and alkali feldspar in a glassy to cryptocrystalline groundmass; also, any rock in that group; the extrusive equivalent of granite. Rhyolite grades into rhyodacite with decreasing alkali feldspar content and into trachyte with a decrease in quartz. The term was coined in 1860 by Baron von Richthofen (grandfather of the World War I aviator). Etymol: Greek rhyo-, from rhyax, stream of lava.