  Some anisotropic materials form semicristalline structures, called
spherulites, which observed in a polarisation microscope, exhibit a
characteristic ``maltese-cross"-like pattern. While this observation has been
hitherto considered as a tool to characterize these materials, we show that
these patterns are associated with a strong light's spin-orbit coupling induced
by the spherulite structures. We experimentally demonstrate these effects using
samples of crystallized ascorbic acid and observing the creation of optical
vortices in transmitted laser beams, as well as the formation of inhomogeneous
polarisation patterns. Our findings suggest the use of spherulites in frequency
ranges, e.g. in the THz domain, where polarisation and spatial shaping of
electromagnetic radiation is still a challenging task.
