Not a bunch of flowers

It's been cold enough that all the big puddles on the path we were walking today were frozen hard. But the air was just above freezing and ground water was dripping down off the hill through the mosses and running along little brooks.

Across one brook, I saw this, what seemed to be a bunch of flowers just past their peak bloom. I took a picture and this evening asked the experts on our local "Wildflowers" page what it could be.

You will, I hope, excuse me for thinking so, but they are not flowers at all. They are a white form of one of the Sphagnum mosses, probably S palustris.

A lovely surprise on a mid-December day.