Hair Ice: The Magic of the Forest

We envy the dormouse when the chilled grey of midwinter seeps into our every bone. We long to stay curled up in a warm embrace and slumber through these long dark months, dreaming of springtime and the rewarming of the earth. Yet on special winter nights, the silent woodland is alive with perfect alchemy.

Donning cosy scarves and gloves to keep us warm, we prepare to venture into the early morning. Something draws us to the forest valley when temperatures dip below zero and the air is laden with humidity.

This is a time to be, to shed our worries and bathe our souls in the magical nature that surrounds us. It is here amidst the broadleaf trees that we feel akin, a time to experience moments of discovery.

Awash with brown and decay, our pace slows as we see flashes of white from the corner of our eye. We look again and the wands of gossamer are swirling from branches and spilling over onto the mouldy woodland floor. This is one of those extraordinary moments when we dare not to breathe, as the marvels of nature are revealed and an ordinary day becomes anything but.

Could it be that tree spirits have anointed this ground? Or is this the silky hair of angels entangled in the pores of dead wood strewn all around? For a brief period in our short lives, we have fallen across a surreal and wondrous beauty that is our own precious discovery. We believed we’d walked in a unique land of dreams. But this exquisite rarity has a name – it is a delicate frozen formation known as hair ice.

First recorded in 1918 by Alfred Wegener, a great pioneer in polar research, he turned his efforts towards solving the mystery of these strands of ice. These are ones that only grow under the most specific of conditions across our globe.

So few and far between have the sightings been in these past one hundred years, it was not until 2015 that the trio of scientists Christian Mätzler, Diana Hofmann and Gisela Preuß cracked the code behind the formation of this icy spectacle in their “Evidence for biological shaping of hair ice” article. They discovered the missing ingredient in the recipe to be the fungus Exidiopsis effusa. This beautiful ice cannot grow without it in climatic conditions that must also be perfect.

We sit in the still of the wood to admire this ghostly phenomenon before the temperature rises and it disappears, as if never having been. A symbol of beauty, a reward for when we break away from the simmer that is our everyday lives and learn to capture moments for just a little longer.

Here in the woods, among the meadows, along the shorelines and over the craggy hills, magical finds are waiting to be discovered. These gems are ones that bring us back down to earth in times of disorder and connect us to the true marvels of our natural world.

A rare and enchanting natural phenomenon, hair ice is fine strands of ice, often described as resembling candyfloss, cotton wool and angel’s hair! Requiring a set of specific conditions to form, sightings of hair ice are mainly recorded in broadleaf forests with a latitude that ranges between 45°N and 55°N. When temperatures dip just below 0 °C, this ice grows on dead or rotting wood where the fungus Exidiopsis effusa is present.

Since 2019, I have recorded numerous sightings of hair ice in an ancient broadleaf woodland near my birthplace in East Hampshire but it can be found right across the United Kingdom.

Lorna Mann

Based in South Somerset, Lorna enjoys caring for the plants and wildlife in her garden, exploring rural landscapes and hopes to inspire others with her creative writing about nature.
You can find more of her work at her blog https://notesfromthewilde.wordpress.com/ and on Instagram @lorna_mann.

Creative Writing, short storyViridis Magazine31 March 2021