With one touch, they vanish. Meet the delicate, icy wonders called frost flowers

By HALLIE GOLDEN The first major blast of wintry weather in the U S this week brought snow frigid temperatures and in selected places something a little more magical Frost flowers Related Articles Reaching points is creating a - frenzy at college basketball games across the country Baby sea otter is reunited with mother in central California after dramatic rescue Critics warn Florida s new teaching standards rehabilitate aspects of the anti-communist Red Scare Civil War general and Seneca leader Ely Samuel Parker posthumously admitted to New York State Bar College football coach John Beam from Last Chance U has died after being shot Made of thin ribbons of ice that extend out in intricate patterns when frozen water breaks through the slits of certain types of plant stems the icy blooms can disintegrate with a single touch and only appear for hours at a time They are uncovered preponderance often in the Eastern half of the U S especially in the upper half where hard freezes are more common and resemble clouds of cotton candy or spun glass For a few it s become a well-known phenomenon indicating the nearness of winter and ushering people out of bed to get a glimpse before the day s sun melts them away On Monday and Tuesday people in Indiana Missouri Tennessee and elsewhere posted photos on social media showing undisturbed fields and backyards littered with the distinct pieces of natural art in the early hours after the hard freeze You have to be at the right time at the right place disclosed Alan Templeton professor emeritus at Washington University in St Louis Missouri who does a lot of conservation genetics You see them and you know they re going to be gone in an hour or two So it s this very ephemeral but highly variable beauty and it s that combination that makes me so fascinated by them While the intricate ice patterns are detected near the base of a limited common plants including white and yellow wingstem plants Templeton explained that the conditions need to be just right for them to appear And once they do they won t be back for another year The ground must be warm and wet enough for water to advance up from the plant s roots into the stem while the air necessities to be cold enough to freeze the liquid so that it breaks through the stem creating the flower-like appearance They re only revealed on a minimal different types of plants because the phenomenon can only occur if the stem is able to hold water in the fall or early winter and is weak enough to break against the pressure from the ice he noted The plants also need to have an especially ongoing root system later in the year Templeton commented he first came across frost flowers decades ago while scoping out an area in the Missouri Ozarks for field work They re really beautiful he revealed And also each one is unique There s no two frost flowers that are the same On Monday after noticing that the weather conditions would be ripe for the phenomenon he set out for a conservation area in St Louis County where he d discovered hundreds in past years This time there were only about two dozen which he commented was likely due to them appearing earlier than usual and the temperatures not dipping quite low enough Crystal Legens has lived in Tennessee for the majority of her life but noted she only discovered frost flowers three years ago when her family moved into a more rural part of the state After seeing them along a small unmaintained tract of land while driving to work in McKenzie chosen miles northeast of Jackson she announced she initially thought they were spider webs or silkworms When she got out of her car and picked them up she noted they broke apart in her hands People live here their whole life and they never even know that exist because they just never see them or they re not in the right place at the right time she stated