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Hi elle

We had a week in La Palma. Mostly lovely weather, though we got soaked on the Friday afternoon and drove a long way to find a dry walk on the Saturday. We did several great walks and found some wonderful ferns.

If you go right to the top (about 2500m) on a clear day (as we did) you can see that the the horizon (on the ocean) is curved!

.............I could add that the temperatures here are a bit of a shock. Thursday morning, breakfast on the balcony, 25C; Friday morning clearing the ice off the steps!

ChrisE, have you always had a cruel streak? Telling us of such pleasant weather when we've been suffering all sorts of horrible stuff...

.........but I'm back here now, as well! We met soe friends there, who weer having a fortnight away.

Hi, Chris!
So what happens when you find a new variety of fern - maybe of course only "new" to the two of you.
Do you photograph it?...take a sample and press it?....take a cutting and try to grow it?
I have no idea, so these may appear to be very naive questions, but I would be interested to hear?
Re the curvature of the ocean.... a large body of water follows the curvature of the earth doesn't it? Although I have never seen this - it's always looked flat to me. Do you have to look at it from a great height, as you did?

Firstly - yes, you only see the curvature from a great height.

Ferns: photographs, certainly, spores - easily replaceable - when the fern is unusual; very occasionally, when the fern is extremely unusual, a tissue sample to send the NHM for confirmation (my wife, the fern expert, was one of the party that found a unique hybrid on Tenerife).

Speaking of weather, there were photos in my local paper of a very unusual phenomenon, think it was near Aberfeldy.
It was "hair ice".
I think it said it only appears on fungus, and disappears if you touch it.

Rusty, I'd never heard of 'hair ice' so have just looked it up. It was interesting and there are some incredible photos online.

I first heard of it a couple of days ago, Malone.
It is certainly fascinating.

Chris, so when you take a tissue sample from a fern, is it done in a similar way to taking a human tissue sample for histology?
Do you take a scraping or cut a 'wedge'?
How do you transport it back - do you put it in formalin?
(sorry, I'm just interested!)

Rusty, I haven't heard of "hair ice".
Is that the same as frost flowers? or are they a different phenomena?