Been digging around the old mushroom threads a bit, and I've noticed that while people occasionally refer to spore prints, there isn't actually a description of how to take one anywhere. So I thought it would be a good idea. 
While many fungi can be indentified without a spore print (and some can't produce a print for one reason or another), there are many species for which a spore print is essential for accurate identification. It's not hard to do, and it could save your life.
Spore prints are mainly used with gilled or pored mushrooms. You will need one mature cap from the species in question, a piece of clean glass, and a piece of white paper. We're not doing anything fancy like looking at spores under magnification, we just want to see what colour they are.
Remove the stem from the mushroom. Place the cap on the glass, gilled / pored side down. Leave for a couple of hours (it doesn't hurt to cover the whole lot to prevent contamination). After a couple of hours, there should be a fine layer of spores on the glass. Place the glass over the piece of white paper to see the colour clearly.
And that's it!
While many fungi can be indentified without a spore print (and some can't produce a print for one reason or another), there are many species for which a spore print is essential for accurate identification. It's not hard to do, and it could save your life.
Spore prints are mainly used with gilled or pored mushrooms. You will need one mature cap from the species in question, a piece of clean glass, and a piece of white paper. We're not doing anything fancy like looking at spores under magnification, we just want to see what colour they are.
Remove the stem from the mushroom. Place the cap on the glass, gilled / pored side down. Leave for a couple of hours (it doesn't hurt to cover the whole lot to prevent contamination). After a couple of hours, there should be a fine layer of spores on the glass. Place the glass over the piece of white paper to see the colour clearly.
And that's it!
