The manufacture of paper from bracket fungi was an innovation from Miriam Rice, first presented in Scotland at the 1993 Scottish Fungi Group Symposium. The result is often of a high quality and attractive in appearance. The textures of the papers are fascinating, each species producing a different subtle texture and natural colouring.

Scroll down to see papers produced from 5 different species (magnified):
 

Daedalopsis confragosa	Pseudo-trametes gibbosa	Heterobasidion annosum

Ganoderma applanatum	Trametes versicolor

HOW TO DO IT...

The fungi are cut in pieces, soaked in water and then blended. The resultant 'fungal puree' is then simply compressed between blotting paper to dry it.

Bracket fungi can be classified by the structure of their hyphae: whether the hyphae are thin-walled (generative), thick-walled linear (skeletal) or thick-walled branched and  mixtures of two (dimitic) or three (trimitic) hyphal types. If only generative hyphae are present in the fungus, it is termed monomitic. The best papers appear to be obtained from trimitic polypores such as Fomes fomentarius and Ganoderma applanatum, while some dimitic species and even a couple of monomitic species can also produce paper.

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