This is hair ice. It is formed on dead barkless wood and a fungus called Exidiopsis effusa is the main reason. I found this and many more, during late autumn in a forest in Northern Denmark
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Mycology
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Thank you for posting this! I saw several examples of this during the recent freezing weather in the UK, and was confused as to what it was. I don’t recall having seen it before, but then I haven’t lived in a wooded valley during prolonged double-digit negative temperatures before either.
You're welcome!
As far as I know, and I can easily be wrong about this, it mostly forms in snow free weather and when the temperature is just below freezing
That would correlate to when I saw it. It’s actually pretty hard to photograph when the ground is frosty, as there’s so little contrast