What is frostweed?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

December 21, 2006

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White crownbeard or frostweed (Verbesina virginica Linnaeus) is a tall perennial of open woodlands and disturbed places from Pennsylvania to Iowa and south to Texas and the tip of Florida. There are eighteen species of crownbeards in the U.S.; the genus is a member of the Asteraceae, the daisy family.

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Frostweed grows with single or multiple stems up to 2 meters (6 feet). The leaves are hairy, arranged alternately along the stem and of two distinct shapes. The upper leaves are lanceolate to ovate; the lower leaves are deeply lobed. The blade of a lobed leaf extends down the petiole and down the stem making the lower portion of the stem winged.

Like other members of the daisy family, frostweed blooms in heads—inflorescences composed of disk and ray florets. Unlike daisies or sunflowers, the heads are not arranged symmetrically. They appear untidy, lopsided, since any one head may have one, two, or several ray florets.

The flower heads are borne on long-stalked terminal corymbs during summer or early autumn. The seeds will scatter before the killing frosts turn frostweed brown.

But if the weather cooperates, frostweed will bloom again in late autumn. These flowers appear on the soil where the stem once stood. Composed of ribbons of frothy ice, frost flowers grow through the remnants of the stem.

Few ever see frost flowers—mostly hardy souls willing to abandon the warmth of bed and seek the flowers in the pre-dawn light where the frostweed once stood. The previous day must have been warm enough for the roots to take up water and the night must be cold enough to freeze. Even then, frost flowers will not linger. The frail ice melts with the morning sun.

Dan Tenaglia has created a fantastic online guide to Missouri wildflowers. To view his page of photographs of frostweed, click on the link:

http://www.missouriplants.com/Whitealt/Verbesina_virginica_page.html

Hi, Dan!

Dr. D. Bruce Means, Director of the Coastal Plains Institute has posted a page dedicated to frost flowers he has found in southern Georgia. To view his spectacular photographs, click on the link:

http://www.brucemeans.com/photo_iceflowers.htm

Note to my readers: Frost flowers are also reported to form on the stems of Verbesina alternifolia, yellow crownbeard and Helianthemum canadense, rock-rose aka frostweed. There are probably other plants that produce frost flowers. The name 'frost flowers' also refers to crystals of ice on sea floes and frost tracery on windowpanes.

(Compiled from: The Guide to Florida Wildflowers, Walter Kingsley Taylor, Taylor Publishing Company, Dallas, 1992; "Verbesina virginica", Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants, Wunderlin, R. P., and B. F. Hansen, 2004 Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa; [S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), Florida Center for Community Design and Research.]; The Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889, published online by Global Language Resources, 2001-2006; "Frost Flowers", Betty Swihart, Missouri Conservationist Online, Missouri Department of Conservation, 1995-2006)

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

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