A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
picea abies
No feathers, no fur - gentle shaped frost caused by Spruce deadwood. the phenomenon is called "Frost Beard" - but it's actually a condition that is caused by the plant it appears on. Here on (fresh) deadwood it is a so powerful capillary action, even able to strip the bark of the deadwood in order to extract to the outside. What leads to the conclusion: The species is a Spruce deadwood in the condition of "frost-bearded".
Spotted on Jan 25, 2012
Submitted on Jan 25, 2012
21 Comments
thanks Harsha and Sergio
It is beautiful, Lars.
That's amazing.
Thanks...never knew the cause of it before, too - Noah made me looking closer to it .. :)
Wow.. its something wonderful. :) Never knew about it.
ID'd - thanks a lot to Clive
Thanks a lot, Clive! That's it. In this case, the phenomenon is called "Ice Beard" - but it's actually a condition that is caused by the plant it appears on.
Here on (fresh) deadwood it is a so powerful capillary action, even able to strip the bark of the deadwood in order to extract to the outside.
What leads to the conclusion: The species is a Spruce deadwood in the condition of "Ice bearded".
Thanks alot for any help and idea on this one.
Great and lucky spotting Lars I am envious and would love to touch the stuff. I hope it doesn't have to go if it's not a life form.
here's the original...
http://www.captureclarkcounty.com/photos...
I found this comment at flickr...
" Hair Ice is ice that grows outward from the surface of barkless wood. As super-cooled water emerges from the wood, it freezes and adds to the hairs from the base. "
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruthanns_vi...
Never seen anything like it! Beautiful & strange, the best combination!
:) yea...wow and odd
Wow!
No, Malcolm...that's the funny thing...we only had +-0°C today...and the frost has been only outside of the warmer inner of the woods - these have been the only frosty encounters within the inner.
Never seen anything like that before - is it below freezing there all the time?
it might be a simple Aspergillus with it's fine needles...I had touched it...but with it it simply melted away...can't tell if there was something on the bark itself - i only touched the "fur"
By the way, did you find out what kind of slime mold was it?
Real good question, arlanda...I have really no specific idea...but it's obvious that it is somehow caused in combination with a mold, since I found these over and over today in the woods - all on deadwood.
And you think the ice is caused by some kind of perspiration coming out of the slime mold?
indeed, arlanda...on today's walk I just went: "oh, wow...what the..."
Impressive!!