I went hiking in the Ozarks on Saturday morning and stumbled on a small patch of frost flowers!

This is the first time I've seen them, and I was surprised to see them this late in the year. Frost flowers typically form during the first few hard freezes of fall when sap in certain small plants freezes, rupturing the stem and forcing water out. The water freezes on contact with the air and builds up into distinctive flower-shaped petals!

#Photography #Arkansas #Weather #MacroPhotography #arwx

@paulknightly At our old house in Central Texas, we had tons of frostweed in our yard and would get these flowers each year. They were fascinating to see. I think we had the only local crop of it though; most people didn’t know about it.