Spore Prints

These ghostly images created by mushroom spores have completely captivated me. Ressurection Fern shares how she made the prints, and has a collection of prints on her blog that are fantastic.

The idea is to collect some fresh mushrooms, cut off the stem and then lay them on a darkly colored paper. If they dry out they won’t release their spores so it is wise to cover the page with a bowl of some sort. It can take hours to about a day to see a spore pattern emerge. Best not to disturb it too much or the pattern will be much less distinctive.