Both minerals are thus far restricted to the area of Listvenitovyi Stream, in the Khatyrka ultramafic (silicon-poor) zone of the KoryakâKamchatka fold area, Koryak Mountains, Beringovsky District, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.
The geology of the Hazen's Notch area in Westfield and Montgomery is primarily Hazen's Notch Formation of schist with intrusions of Belvidere Mountain Amphibolite and two areas of ultramafic rocks all of which grades into Jay Peak Formation in the lower elevations.
It occurs as tiny 0.1 mm grains in a small terrestrial rock sample labelled "khatyrkite, Khatyrka ultramafic zone, Koryak-Kamchatka area, Koryak Mountains, Russia", collected from an outcrop of weathered serpentinite (catalog number 46407/G, housed in The Museum of Natural History, University of Florence, Italy).
Whereas N. edwardsiana and N. villosa are restricted to generally ultramafic soils in the Kinabalu area, N. macrophylla is only found near the summit of Mount Trusmadi, which is mostly composed of sandstone.
Serpentine soil is a magnesium rich, calcium, potassium and phosphorus poor soil that develops on the regolith derived from ultramafic rocks.