The Incredible Frost Flower

Awesome!

A Daily Thought

It is as beautiful as it is rare. A frost flower is created on autumn or early winter mornings when ice in extremely thin layers is pushed out from the stems of plants or occasionally wood.  This extrusion creates wonderful patterns which curl and fold into gorgeous frozen petioles giving this phenomenon both its name and its appearance.

Conditions have to be just so for frost flowers to form. Early winter are the optimum time to come across them as although the weather conditions must be freezing, it is vital that the ground is not, so water can be sucked up in the stem.

As the temperature gets to freezing or just below, the sap in the  stem of the plants will expand. As it does so, the outer layer of the stem comes under increasing pressure and
microscopically thin cracks, known as linear fissures, begin to form…

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