We finally had the conditions for good frost flowers Thursday night/Friday morning.
Under exactly the right conditions (temperature, moisture, dead sticks ravaged by the correct fungi), dead sticks “grow” strands of ice that form formations that look like locks of hair… or, sometimes, like flowers!
Aesthetically I like the latter term better.
We are lucky enough to live in an area that usually has the correct conditions a few times each winter.
However, this was the first really good batch of frost flowers of the season!
The temperature range has been correct (we’ve been having an unusually chilly span, where it is below freezing each night, above during the day).
This would normally be perfect, but the humidity has been too high!
The result is gloppy frost flowers, where secondary frost messes up the formation.
So it was a joy to go out Friday morning and find lots of really well-grown frost flowers!
This means that the sticks were well sodden, and the temperature range was correct for many hours.
From a distance, they are eye-catching but not beautiful. They just look out of place: clumps of pure white in a landscape of brown and green.
In our area (South Puget Sound), they are strongly associated with alders.
So check your alder groves on a cold morning!
I hope you have enjoyed this foray!
I’ll close out with one that shows off especially nice distinct locks. Because it is a small twig, the growth was not so luxuriant as to hide the structure.
