Place a tumbler on top of the cap to prevent it from drying out. If you intend looking at the spores under a microscope, then whatever colour the spores are making the spore print on a microscope slide or (better still) a slide cover slip is ideal. This works okay for mushrooms whose spores are not white! For white-spored mushrooms use black paper or clear plastic or glass. Place the cap, gills downwards, on white paper.

Some stems snap easily from the cap, but in most instances it is best to cut the stem using a scalpel or a very sharp knife. Remove the stem so that when you turn the cap over the gills will make close contact with the paper. The particular colour of the spore print can help you narrow down the number of possibilities in your quest to identify the specimen to species level. For example in the family Russulaceae some genera have whitish spores while others have yellow spores, ochre spores etc. In some families there is a range of spore colours. The colour of the spores, when seen en masse, is one of the best ways of determining which mycological family the specimen belongs to - for example the Amanitaeae (which have whitish spores), Cortinariaceae (which have rust-brown spores), Entolomataceae (which have pinkish spores) etc. One of the main reasons for making a spore print of a mushroom or any other kind of fungus is to help in the process of identification.

Spore print art