Wonder of nature: Scientists have explained why some trees grow thick gray hair at the beginning of winter.
Shaggy ice, ice beard, frosty beard, ice wool, hair ice - this is how mycologists - mushroom specialists - call the phenomenon that appears on trees in a light frost. What does mycologists have to do with it? Despite the fact that mushrooms take an active part in the formation of "ice hair".
The hair is really icy - a kind of thinnest frozen threads up to 20 centimeters long and a hundredth of a millimeter thick. They are rarely seen. "Gray hair" is hidden by snow, then it, growing overnight, quickly melts under the rays of the morning sun. "Icy hair" comes to the eyes, while it is not snowy in the forests, but already a little frosty - from zero to about minus one or two. Such conditions are now prevalent in some areas of the Northern Hemisphere - for example, in the US state of Washington in the Olympic Forest near the city of Sequim (Olympic National Forest near Sequim). Someone Jake Buehler captured an amazing natural phenomenon there. Not scared, but very surprised.
* Hair * that surprised the residents of Washington state.
Jack and all others who have seen "hairy ice" were enlightened on the ScienceAlert portal. It turned out that the mystery of the phenomenon had been solved for a hundred years. And it finally succumbed only in 2015 - Swiss and German researchers (Christian Mätzler, Diana Hofmann, Gisela Preush) then issued a press release with explanations.
Icy hair looks silky - butoh would grow on a grandmother's head.
It's all about ice segregation - a process in which liquid water is involved, preserved inside dead wood - in twigs and dead wood. Water does not freeze there due to capillary effects, even if it is already below zero outside. The ice that forms on the wood itself draws water from the internal channels. Here she is freezing with thin hairs that curl into curls. The hairs retain their shape thanks to lignins and tannins - the waste products of the auriculariaceae family that have settled in the wood. Exidiopsis effusa is what they are called. It seems that these particular fungi are responsible both for the formation of a thick "hair" and for its preservation, preventing recrystallization. That is, the formation of large crystals from small ones.
Icy hair melts quickly in warmth.
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Scientists report that "ice hair" appears in areas located at latitudes between 45 and 55 degrees. Forests of the Moscow region fall into this strip. There is a chance to meet "gray hair" before the snow falls and the nights are wet and cold.
The fungus Exidiopsis effusa is this mold-like substance and is responsible for the growth of * ice hair *.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY
