Hair Ice (Exidiopsis effusa)

Shifting baseline syndrome - it's a thing. We hark back to what we remember from when we were younger, can barely begin to imagine the abundance and diversity of life our land and oceans can hold. Certainly in Scotland, where so much has been lost.

But does it work both ways? Are there circumstances in which our baseline level of exposure to nature is so high that we fail to appreciate its remarkableness. Perhaps.

Today, I was ambling through a beechwood in the Trossachs where I grew up. There, in the mass of crinkling brown leaves was a tuft of white. I knew immediately what it was. Hair ice. I see it every year, often several times, and this is the best spot.

By the time I was fifteen or sixteen, I was quite used to hair ice. It's normal here. When I saw an article on the BBC describing it as rare, I scoffed. Rare in the city maybe.

I was however, excited to learn that a team of German researchers had cracked the cause of hair ice, finding it was linked to the fungus Exidiopsis effusa.

It was only this year, when I saw it again and realised I'd only ever spotted it in these parts, that I began to wonder if I was wrong after all. Perhaps it really was rare.

The NBN Atlas shows no records of Exidiopsis effusa in Stirlingshire. Is it just under-recorded? Or can individual baselines shift both ways?