The strange appearance of the globular mushroom was transformed by the colorful cherry birch leaf.
A globular cluster of mushrooms makes an unusual backdrop for a cherry birch leaf. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
On a recent walk around the neighborhood, I came across something I hadn't seen before. I was walking at a quick pace (for me) down a path surrounded by cherry birch trees whose leaves were turning fall colors. Out of the corner of my eye, in the grass alongside the path, I noticed a lumpy, basketball-sized dark pile or organic material. At first, I thought it was a pile of excrement from a (very) large animal, but there was something unusual about it.
It had a lumpy appearance, as if made up of hundreds of brown, round marshmallows. Looking more closely, those marshmallows looked more like rounded mushrooms. Curious, I looked underneath and from the side, where I saw a large number of individual stalks and parasol-like caps comprising this large mushroom cluster. From the side, it looked like hundreds of tropical drink umbrellas had been arranged one next to the other. From above, all you could see was the rounded shape of the umbrellas.
Mushroom cluster viewed from the side. Photo: © Donald J. Rommes
A birch leaf had fallen from the neighboring trees and landed on the mushroom cluster. I visualized a photo. After completing my walk and returning home, I got my camera and tripod and returned. The weather had turned cloudy and dark by then, which heralded an approaching rainstorm.
I carefully modified the angle of the birch leaf to my liking, then made several 15 second exposures in the dim light. Nothing was done in post-processing other than to correct the slight color cast. The resulting photo almost looks like it was done in a studio—but it was a found "objet d'art" in the local landscape.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Note: I am by no means an expert at identifying mushrooms and I wouldn't eat a wild mushroom unless it has been identified by an expert. That said, the mushroom cluster I saw looks like the photos of Coprinellus micaceus I found on the internet. Here are a couple of photos:
Comments