Our hard freeze finally arrived early this morning. And with it came one of my favorite gifts of the season – rabbit frost.
The frost is formed when the moisture in the stems of the grasses and weeds is frozen and then is squeezed thru the membranes of the plant. It causes a delicate sheet of ice to burst thru and curl around the stems.
I have seen frost form huge roses of curls. This happens especially if it is an early freeze and there is more moisture in the plants.
If you try to touch the rabbit frost, it will shatter like shaved ice and will disappear as soon as the sunlight hits it.
I am sorry that these photos don’t show the delicacy of the frost.
It is one more of the beauties of the course of our seasons.
thecourseofourseasons 
We call these frost flowers. So lovely, very hard to get a good shot of. Lovely.
Now I see why you related to my post about frostweed at
http://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/frostweed-explains-its-name
but the term “rabbit frost” is new to me. Here in central Texas we have a tiny flowering plant called rabbit tobacco, but that’s the only botanical rabbit I think I’m familiar with. In any case, I’m glad to meet someone else who’s delighted with this ice phenomenon.