Down to around freezing overnight

 

As recently as this past week I was still finding a few flowers on frostweed plants (Verbesina virginica) in Austin. The picture above is from the drizzly morning of December 10th.

The common name for this species comes not from its white flowers but from one of the strangest phenomena in botany. By the time the frost begins settling overnight on the lands where frostweed grows, almost all of these plants have gone to seed. Although each stalk stands there unappealingly as it dries out, the first good freeze can cause it to draw underground water up into its base. Now for the strange trick: the exterior of the part of the stalk near the ground splits open as it extrudes freezing water laterally, and that process produces thin sheets of ice that curl and fold around the broken stalk.

Yesterday morning the temperature in Austin got down to around freezing, so off I went to the stand of frostweed plants in Great Hills Park I’ve been relying on for a decade to produce ice. They didn’t disappoint me. Here are three frostweed ice portraits:

 

 

As always with a familiar subject, I worked to get pictures that look
at least somewhat different from the ones I’ve taken over the years.

 

 

All of these fit that description.

 

 

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman