44 Nebraskaland • November 2020
Refl ecting on the
Crown-tipped Coral
By Gerry Steinauer
ne morning last July, I was riding in a UTV down a trail
at Indian Cave State Park with ecologist Krista Lang,
when I blurted out "Stop, stop, stop!"
What had I seen? What had so excited this botanist?
There, deep in the oak woods, growing on a log, was a
beautiful crown-tipped coral mushroom. One of our missions
that day was to photograph mushrooms, and this was a
perfect specimen — fresh, big and immaculately shaped.
But there was a problem. The mushroom was in dense
shade under shrubs, and I needed light on the subject to
prevent a dull photo. Luckily on this day, this sometimes
forgetful botanist had remembered his refl ector. Portable,
lightweight and collapsible, hand-held refl ectors are used to
… you guessed it … refl ect light onto shaded photo subjects. In
canopied forests and other habitats with tall vegetation, they
are a must for close-up photography of insects, wildfl owers
or mushrooms. They also can provide fi ll light to reduce
shadows and hence reduce overall contrast in an image.
My refl ector, purchased online for less than $20, has
reversible gold, silver and matte-white surfaces to refl ect
varying colors of light. For the crown-tipped coral, I chose
the gold surface to bathe the mushroom in a warm light that
enhanced its tan color.
While I ran the camera, Lang, standing about 10 feet away,
used the refl ector to catch and aim a shaft of sunlight that
had pierced the canopy onto the mushroom. The mushroom
The crown-tipped coral
(Artomyces pyxidatus)
is the most common
coral mushroom found
in Nebraska. Its most
characteristic feature is
the crown-like shape of
the tips of its branches.
O
PHOTO
BY
GERRY
STEINAUER
