Red Snow

Named after a natural phenomenon, red snow is an algae that lives inside ice and snow. During the warm season it streaks the snow a purple red, almost like someone spilled a fine red wine.

Botanical Characteristics

Red snow is a cryotolerant algae that lives in long-lasting ice and snow. The red colour is thought to protect it against the harsh sunlight of the frozen north. It can be found all over the Frozen Isles, and is also sometimes observed in northern Imcri.
During the cold season, the algae persists in a dormant state. When snow and ice starts to melt during the warm season, nutrients become available for the algae and increasing levels of sunlight stimulate the algae to grow.

Ice Sprites

Before the algae was discovered, the phenomenon of red snow was attributed to ice sprites travelling north. It is common knowledge that ice sprites like it cold. During the cold season they can be found almost everywhere on the Frozen Isles, sometimes even in northern Imcri, but when the snow starts to melt, they travel back to where the frost persists.
Regional superstition believes that ice sprites can prolong the cold season, and offerings were and are still made to the ice sprites in the form of all kinds of delicacies to persuade them to leave so that the warm season can begin. The red colour of the snow was said to be caused by the revelling sprites spilling wine on their journey north.

Discovery

It was only about a century ago that red snow was put under a microscope by pure coincidence, and the algae observed for the first time. There was no real scientific curiosity for the red snow specifically when it was put under the microscope. Instead, it was simply part of the sample as the botanist wanted to observe glacier mosses up close. It took another twenty full years for botanists to realise that the algae was not part of the moss, and in fact was the causative agent of red snow. The name stuck, and thus the algae is named after the phenomenon.