embryonic snowflake growing on the end of an ice needle. A crystal forms before a flake.
Kenneth Libbrecht of CalTech designed a snowflake photomicroscope – a snowflake incubation chamber – to study the tiny, frozen crystals that normally would melt in a millisecond outside his lab.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16822703.600-designer-snowflakes.html
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn16170-snowflakes/3