Take a piece of smooth white writing-paper and coat its surface evenly
with a thin solution of gum-arabic, dextrine, or other mucilage, and
allow it to dry. Pin this, gummed side uppermost, to a board or table,
preferably over a soft cloth, so that it will lie perfectly flat. To
insure a good print the mushroom specimen should be fresh and firm,
and the gills or spore-surface free from breaks or bruises.
Cut the stem off about level with the gills, then lay the mushroom,
spore-surface downward, upon the paper, and cover with a tumbler,
finger-bowl, or other vessel with a smooth, even rim, to absolutely
exclude the slightest ingress of air.
After a few hours have passed by, perhaps even less, the spores will
be seen through the glass on the paper at the extreme edge of the
mushroom, their depth of color indicating the density of the deposit.
If we now gently lift the glass, and with the utmost care remove the
fungus, perhaps by the aid of pins previously inserted, in a
_perfectly vertical_ direction, without the slightest side motion,
the spore-print in all its beauty will be revealed--perhaps a rich
brown circular patch with exquisite radiating white lines, marking the
direction and edges of the gills, if an Agaric; perhaps a delicate
pink, more or less clouded disk, here and there distinctly and finely
honey-combed with white lines, indicating that our specimen is one of
the polypores, as a Boletus. Other prints will yield rich golden
disks, and there will be prints of red, lilac, greens, oranges,
salmon-pinks, and browns and purples, variously lined in accordance
with the number and nature of the gills or pores. Occasionally we
shall look in vain for our print, which may signify that our specimen
had already scattered its spores ere we had found it, or, what is more
likely, that the spores are _invisible_ upon the paper, owing to their
whiteness, in which case a piece of black paper must be substituted
for the white ground, when the response will be beautifully manifest
in a white tracery upon the black background. One of these, from the
_Amanita muscarius_, is reproduced in our illustration. If the
specimen is left too long, the spore-deposit is continued upward
between the gills, and may reach a quarter of an inch in height, in
which case, if extreme care in lifting the cap is used, we observe a
very realistic counterfeit of the gills of the mushroom in high relief
upon the paper. A print of this kind is of course very fragile, and
must be handled with care. But a comparatively slight deposit of the
spores, without apparent thickness, will give us the most perfect
print, while at the same time yielding the full color. Such a print
may also be fixed by our present method so as to withstand
considerable rough handling, all that is required being to lay the
print upon a wet towel until the moisture has penetrated through the
paper and reached the gum. The spores are thus set, and, upon drying
the paper, are quite securely fixed. Indeed, the moisture often
exuded by the confined fungus beneath the glass proves sufficient to
dampen the mucilage and set the spores.
A number of prints may be obtained from a single specimen.
To those of my readers interested in the science of this spore-shower
I give sectional illustrations of examples of the two more common
groups of mushrooms--the Agaric, or gilled mushroom, and the
Polyporus, or tube-bearing mushroom. The entire surface of both gills
and pores is lined with the spore-bearing membrane, or hymenium, the
spores falling directly beneath their point of departure as indicated;
in the case of the Agaric, in radiating lines in correspondence with
the spaces between the gills, and in Polyporus in a tiny pile directly
beneath the opening of each pore.