Spore printing

Gathered a week or two ago on a walk around our place.  I've no idea what any of them are, although apparently the color derived from spre prints helps in identification.  Stems were cut off and caps placed on paper:

Only a few of them left prints behind:

Each one

so

lovely.

Another done with only one cap, moved several times over the course of about 12 to 24 hours:

This one was spotted on a branch at about my eye level, around 5 feet plus a few inches.  I've heard it said that squirrels stash them there to dry, and that the height they are left at indicates how much snow there will be next winter!

 

The morels we dried left their own prints on the drying screens.

 

And their prints only showed up when we placed them on black paper, not white.

I'm pretty sure we found this a lot more fun and interesting than the boys did.

Comments

[tanya]

Ooooh! These are beautiful! (i should be working on that baby sack but am putting it off because NOW i hit the tricky part and am intimidated. The knitting shop here is helping me and by the way THAT was where i heard about the casein needles being used in prisons! The shop owner teaches knitting in one. Phew! I was afraid i had a secret life my brain wasn't telling me about).
I really like the bottom two pics of the prints. They're mysterious and HIGHLY cool.

[Elizabeth]

Very cool!
I told my family about your morel picking the other day and showed them the pics and my son said, "We have those growing under that tree by the driveway." We went out to look but I fear someone weed-wacked them. They said there was no way they were eating something that looked like that anyway!
This, the printing, they may get into. They look other-wordly, which would make sense of the theory that the spores come from outer space. (Your boys may find that interesting)

[chilihead]

That is fascinating! You just lay them on the paper? Or do you paint them and print with them? They are gorgeous. I'd like to do this with the kids if I can figure out what you did. LOL

[Sarah R]

They are beautiful. I wonder if you could spray them gently with some sort of fixative and then you could frame them...they really are ghostly.

[Berlinswhimsy]

I love this!! Now I want to go in search of mushrooms!

[Ellen]

What a cool idea. Does this work with other vegetables? Or is it something about the spores from the mushroom?

[bohemian girl]

Yes, mushrooms are amazing. There is an artist who makes prints with spores but I don't have any of her pictures to share on-line right now! I wrote something about mushrooms on my blog here: http://bohemiagirl.blogspot.com/search/label/mushrooms

[Jennifer]

Thank you for reminding me how much I love making spore prints. I had a mycology class in college, and making spore prints is an important step in identifying the species, but I also think they are beautiful.

[cloth.paper.string]

i keep coming back to these photos. the prints are so good, so inspiring.

[Virginia]

Thank you for posting about this! I hope you don't mind, I posted one of your pictures on our blog and linked to this post. So beautiful! You've inspired me to take a hike with a purpose.

[stefani]

This is so SO cool. We are definitely going to see if we can find some mushrooms to play with!