Crystallofolia

Crystallofolia

I had not heard of Crystallofolia before Michael O’Reilly’s post. It’s beautiful and interesting.

From Latin crystallus ice [itself from Greek κρυσταλλος; cf. κρυος ‘frost’]and folium leaf. These elegant formations have been given many names, metaphorical in nature, most commonly ‘frost flowers’ (or ribbons), a formation which is neither frost nor a flower. These common names, however, are easily confused with terms describing true frost from condensation on a cold surface as well as any picturesque ice formation. These frost metaphors are of fairly recent origin, not current with 19th Century treatments of the subject (e.g., ‘frost freak’ was used by several scholars). I thus propose folium, leaf, as a more appropriate metaphor, since like leaves these formations emerge laterally from the stem, and the enormous diversity of forms finds better matches with leaves than with flowers and ribbons — although this is perhaps less poetic. Perhaps more significantly, the physical process by which water moves to the ice formations is analogous to the transpiration that brings water from the roots to the leaves. My perspective is not new: German botanists in the 19th Century used the term ‘Eisblatt’ (‘ice leaf’).

Read the source below for more information about this phenomenon.

Source with additional images:

http://w3.biosci.utexas.edu/prc/VEVI3/crystallofolia.html by Bob Harms

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Originally shared by Michael O’Reilly

Frostweed

Last night we had our first hard freeze of the year, and the frostweed in our yard put on a little performance. Basically the water inside the frostweed freezes and extrudes from splits in the stem in fascinating ribbons and whorls. Here’s a shot of one of the splits with the ice curling around the stem. The ribbons are unbelievably thin, and it makes a pretty effect. A couple of the sections were over a foot tall, with the ice going in several directions.

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=VEVI3

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