35° was low enough

Our outdoor thermometer yesterday morning had dropped to about 35°F (1.6°C). I’ve learned from years of experience that that’s normally low enough for me to find ice extruded from the frostweed plants (Verbesina virginica) in the nearest portion of Great Hills Park, about half a mile away. From home to there is downhill, and the frostweed plants grow at the base of a slope that descends from where the road bottoms out. Down there it’s apparently colder enough for frostweed ice to appear, because that’s what’s been happening for years now.

I took a bunch of pictures. Most of them, like the one below, didn’t show any blue. That’s because frostweed ice forms at and near the base of the plant’s stalk, and it’s hard to include sky in a photograph of such a low subject. To get the top portrait I lay on my mat on the ground and struggled to line the ice up with a patch of blue sky while excluding the many other nearby plants. Usually at least a little junk showed up at the bottom in that set of photographs, but today’s top picture proved a success.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman

A second round of frostweed ice this season

After I awoke yesterday morning and saw that our outdoor thermometer showed exactly 32°F (0°C), I knew that after the sun rose I’d be heading down to Great Hills Park to find out if the frostweed plants (Verbesina virginica) had gone through a second round of their famous ice trick. The view from where I parked didn’t look promising, but once I walked down the slope to the frostweed plants, I saw that there’d be enough ice to work on. In fact I ended up spending a little over three hours there.

I took the third picture at almost 11 o’clock, when the temperature
had risen to 45° and the frostweed ice was slowly melting.

If you’re not familiar with this unusual phenomenon, what happens is that when the temperature drops to freezing the frostweed plant draws water up from underground via its roots and extrudes it through the splitting sides of its stalk as delicate sheets of ice, mostly close to the ground. You can learn a lot more about the science of frostweed ice in an article by Bob Harms.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

Frostweed ice and frostweed frost

The overnight temperature dropped enough from November 30th into December 1st for frostweed (Verbesina virginica) to do its magic ice trick, as I found when I spent a couple of hours that morning taking pictures in the shade in Great Hills Park (the sun hadn’t risen above the trees yet). I made photographs with and without flash; the latter came out softer and bluer, as you see above. If you’re new to the frostweed ice phenomenon, you may want to read an excellent article about it by Bob Harms.

Many frostweed leaves had actual frost on them, as shown in the second picture.

© 2020 Steven Schwartzman

The change from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning

From Monday’s weather forecast I learned that the overnight temperature into Tuesday morning would drop a few degrees below freezing. Sure enough, when I checked the thermometer early Tuesday morning it read 29°. Equally sure enough, that meant I had to dress warmly and go out into the cold for the season’s first possible pictures of frostweed ice. I drove the half-mile to my usual stand of plants (Verbesina virginica) in Great Hills Park and found—nada. Despite the freeze, not a single frostweed plant had produced ice.

On Wednesday morning the thermometer read 32° and I gave the project a second try. This time a couple of dozen frostweed plants had woken up and remembered what they’re supposed to do when the temperature drops to freezing, and they did it, as these two photographs confirm. The second image is more abstract, which I consider a good thing in my quest for different ways to photograph a familiar subject.

If the frostweed ice phenomenon is new to you, you’re welcome to look back at previous posts to learn more.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Frostweed ice abstraction

Envious of the ice and snow pictures that some of you who dwell in the lands of true winter have been showing lately, this morning I finally got a chance to follow suit after the overnight temperature dropped to freezing and a few frostweed plants (Verbesina virginica) in Great Hills Park did their magic ice trick. Shown here is a little piece of ice that separated from the frostweed stalk it had formed on.

If the phenomenon of crystallofolia is new to you, you can find a basic explanation in a post of mine from 2012 and a thorough treatment in an article by Bob Harms.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Frost and frostweed ice

As yesterday gave way to today, the temperature in Austin dropped below freezing, so out I went this morning to check on a stand of frostweed (Verbesina virginica) that I rely on in Great Hills Park. Sure enough, a couple of dozen plants had done their magic ice trick. The one shown here did so right next to a straggler daisy (Calyptocarpus vialis) that conveniently harmonized with it by getting frosted in its own right. If you’d like a better view of the straggler daisy, click the thumbnail below.

And if you’re not familiar with the frostweed ice phenomenon, you’re welcome to read more about it.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Frostweed ice: toward abstraction

The extrusion of ice by frostweed (Verbesina virginica) is a great natural phenomenon. Austin’s temperature stayed mostly below freezing from the morning of January 1st, when I went down to Great Hills Park to take my first photographs of the new year, through this morning, when I returned for a second round of frostweed pictures, even more than two days earlier. Frostweed ice offers an opportunity for photographic abstractions, and that’s what you’re seeing here. Unlike the picture you saw last time, which involved flash, today’s images were made by natural light, which necessitated wider apertures that produced a softer feel.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

The frostweed, yes.

I don’t know if Carl Sandburg knew about frostweed’s magic ice trick, but those of you who’ve been coming here for a while sure do. When the Austin temperature dropped to 26°F (–3°C) on New Year’s Eve, I knew there was a strong likelihood for frostweed ice on January 1st. When morning came, I dressed warmly and headed for a stand of Verbesina virginica I know in Great Hills Park, there to spend two hours in the cold taking scads of pictures.

If you’re not familiar with the frostweed ice phenomenon, you can read more about it in an early post.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

I wasn’t expecting another chance this season…

I wasn’t expecting another chance this season to photograph frostweed ice. My outlook changed two nights ago when the weather forecast for the morning of January 7th predicted a low temperature of around 23°F (–5°C). Out I went into that cold morning, once more to Great Hills Park, and sure enough some of the frostweed plants were doing their thing again. Because of previous performances, this time practically all the ice displays were way down low on the stalks, often touching the ground. In my 90 minutes of taking pictures I went mostly for close and abstract views of the ice, one of which you see here.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

A contrast in strata

Above: Geological strata in Sedona (Arizona) on October 20.

Below: Frostweed ice strata in Austin (Texas) on December 19.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman