Frost Flowers

It has been cold here in the Ozarks. Cold. The cold has yielded a rare treat, though: a frost flower. A frost flower forms when the air is freezing but the ground is not. The stem of the plant is still pulling water up from the ground but the freezing air causes the stems to crack and ice to form in extremely thin layers which is pushed out from the stems of plants in the most wonderful patterns, like Christmas ribbon candy. These were found on my Ozark hill near an area that is often wet. I'm not sure what these plants were before they went to seed but they seem to all have woody stems.