Plants in my Victor?

[Rickertsen2]

I was curious about how the victors worked, so i cracked one open and started poking around. The first thing i noticed is that the circuits are coated in some soft of clear silicone-ish substance. Now along with the components there are bits of some sort of bristly plant matter embedded in this coating. They look almost like pine needles only they are too small to be pine needles. Anybody have any idea what this matter could be and what the coating is for? I would theorize that this stuff is some sort of debris that was in the area of the coating as it was curing. This is one of last year's "revision F" victors (according to the silkscreening).

[KenWittlief]

the coating on the circuits is called conformal coating. Its designed to keep parts from corroding, to make the circuit moisture and sometimes even water proof, to keep foriegn objects from shorting the traces, and its also used in some high vibration / hi acceleration applications to glue the parts to the circuit board

but the pine needles? you may have discovered an instance of spontainious life generation!