Have you ever seen the frosted white ice ribbons with which Jack Frost adorns the stems of plants and weeds on frosty mornings? Ice ribbons are prone to occur in the chill of early winter when the ground is neither frozen nor covered with snow. The Cunila - Cunila origanoides - found up and down the Appalachian highland system is the favorite plant on which the ribbons form. Frequently similar ice ribbons have been observed growing from the stems of dead plants and weeds on the frosty slopes of the "hill" of our central plateaus.

The past winter very warm and moist weather occurred the last two weeks of November and the first few days of December. As a result the pumice slopes and bogs along the margins of Crater Lake National Park became thoroughly saturated with water from the nearly incessant mantle of fog and mist. Then came slightly colder weather with frost and ice. The chill of early mornings is the time to look for the ribbons which are tied by jolly old Jack Frost.

Ice ribbons were found in the bogs and in the canyon floors of the park to delight the lover of Nature. The ribbons observed were about two to three inches long and one inch wide, some transparent but most of them were frozen white, colored as the hoar frost of the dead of winter. It appears that the ribbons grow from the sides of dead stems and the water is supplied by the large sap tubes in the thin woody shell of the stems and not by the central pith. Since the ribbons are frequently found in dead stems broken off with one end sticking in a pool of water or a saturated bog, it is evident that a root system is not essential for the formation of these curious ice festoons.

Many partially formed ribbons were found, and from the various stages in the development observed, it is evident that the ribbons begin as a row, vertical with the stem, of closely space hair-like spicules of ice -- show a fibrous structure running length-wise with a silky sheen and the ribbon in each case growing from the contact with the saturated stem. The stem is fed with the necessary water by capillary action; the moisture being conducted up through the sap ducts of the woody stems. The graceful curves develop as the knife blade thin ribbon is forced out by the freezing moisture as it is continuously fed from the saturated pores.