An unusual twig on a woodland floor
Introduction
The photograph on this page of An unusual twig on a woodland floor by Walter Baxter as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
An unusual twig on a woodland floor
Image: © Walter Baxter Taken: 18 Feb 2010
It would appear that this is a fungus growing out of this twig in the leaf litter in woodland at High Enoch, but it is in fact ice crystals caused by freezing water being extruded out through small cracks in the wood. This, together with polysaccharide material, produces the white strand structure. My thanks to fellow geographer M J Richardson and his mycologist friend R Watling for the identification. This phenomenon is known as "frost flowers" or "feather frost" - see the following link sent to me by Sylvia Duckworth - http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/frost/frost.htm
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
55.290514
Longitude
-3.765533