I shot this on a very cold morning in Pea Ridge Civil War Park, Arkansas. I hadn’t seen or heard of ice flowers before. There were several on a road bank and they are very delicate and melt quickly. “Frost flowers develop when air temperatures are freezing but the ground still is warm enough for the plant’s root system to be active. Plant juices flow from these roots up into the stem, where the cold air freezes them. As the moisture in the plant freezes, the ice crystals push out through the stem.”
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Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon 50D, 1/400 @ 7.1, ISO 200, 70-200 @200.
Thank you Linda. We were driving into the park and saw what looked like shredded white plastic bags on the roadside hill. It looked like a mower had run over some grocery bags. I stopped thinking I would pick up some of the litter, but found it was ice flowers ! Had never seen them before and had to check with the rangers on the way out to find out what it was. They are tissue paper thin and melt as soon as they are touched. Amazing…
We did exactly the same thing, thought it was plastic bags messing up the road. I took several “phone photos” and had to wait until we got home to do my research to figure out what they were. Yes, amazing what nature provides.
