How to Make a Spore Print

Making a spore print is an easy way to identify a mushroom. Spores are the powdery deposit left behind by mushrooms.

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My favourite foraging season is here. Late Summer and Autumn are my favourite seasons for mushroom foraging. In my area, the start of cooler temperatures brings to us some amazing mushrooms such as Chicken of the Woods and my kid’s favourite, Puffballs.

Chicken of the Woods or Laetiporus species.

Learning to mushroom hunt can be a little daunting at first. A lot of mushrooms look the same. How are you to know which is harmful and which is safe?

There are many resources out there to teach you how to be a more educated forager but really, it all comes down to practice.

Before harvesting massive amounts of wild mushrooms, I spent years becoming more and more comfortable with picking, dissecting, smelling and making spore prints of mushrooms around the woods.

What is a spore print?

A spore print is a method of collecting the spores from a mushroom. It is one of the best ways to determine the ID of a mushroom. So many types of mushrooms can look similar to each other. Creating spore prints can help you distinguish between different species. Spore prints vary from mushroom to mushroom in colour, scent and even shape.

If you are just learning to forage, I strongly recommend making a spore print of all the mushrooms that you find. This will help you become more familiar with the make up and structure of the mushrooms you are wishing to harvest. Your field guide will tell you what your mushroom’s spore print should look like.

You can also collect the spores from a spore print to cultivate your own mushrooms at home.

What You Need to Make a Spore Print

To make a spore print, you will need:

A Mushroom
Black Construction Paper
White Construction Paper

How to Make a Spore Print

To make spore prints, you will first need to go out and harvest mushrooms! If you are new to mushroom hunting and feeling a little anxious, don’t worry. Mushrooms cannot harm you just by touch. Just make sure to wash your hands and never ingest anything you can’t identify.

When you have a fair sampling of mushrooms, or even just one, place the mushroom on the black or white construction paper. I like to overlap the mushroom onto the white and black paper. This shows a very interesting contrast. Some spores are so light in colour that they may not be well visible on just a white sheet alone.

Set the mushroom aside for a few hours or even overnight. I suggest covering the mushroom with a glass bowl or something to prevent it from being disturbed.

In the morning, you should be able to remove the mushroom from the paper and see a clear print of the spores that have fallen from the mushroom.

How to Identify Mushrooms Based on Spore Prints

This printable chart shows you how to indentify a variety of species based on spore print.

If you are using a field guide to assist you, you can simply read in the description of the mushroom how the spore print should appear. If your print is a match, you now have a positive ID!

Tips For Choosing the Right Mushrooms

When using mushrooms with a clear cap and stem, remove the stem first. You only need the cap to make a spore print. Other mushrooms, like a shelf or bracket fungus, can be placed straight onto the paper.

The mushrooms you are choosing should be fresh. They should not be too dry or too wet. If you do come upon a mushroom that is a little dry, you can attempt to rehydrate it by adding a few spritzes of water.

If you are interested in making a spore print but have no interest in harvest wild mushrooms, you can do this experiment using mushrooms right from the grocery store. This makes for a fun homeschool science lesson.