im not sure if i am posting this in the right place or not,
i saw this yesterday and from a distace of 8ft it looked like a mass of white hairs, which do not appear so dense when viewed from close up,
are the white stalks the fruiting part of the moss/lichen ??
there seem to be two differrent types, one has a black "seed" like head and the other a star shaped "flower" head,
(click on the pic again once it is loaded for a larger pic)
Brian.