Hey Don,
There is no way to tell if a mushroom is safe just with a spore print. All parts od a mushroom should be IDed also, inclucing cap shape, surface, gills, stalk, gill spacing, cap attachment to stalk, rings, shape and veils. In addition habitat offers clues to ID. Each of the fore mentioned categories have many types within them. For example cap shapes would include sunken, bell-shaped, flat, conical, convex and knobbed. Gill spacing could be crowded, close or distant. Rings would be sheathing, double, cobwebb, ring zone, pendant or flaring...and so on
The Audubon book has IMO one of the best spore charts and includes gill attachments, veils, habitat and then spore print. There are 5 color groups for spore ID.
1 white to cream or yellow
2 pink to salmon, brownish pink or reddish
3 ochre to rust or chocolate brown
4 purple bbrown to purple black, smokey black and black
5 grey green to olive
Spores also have a great many shapes that can be IDed with a cheap microscope.
This sounds complicated but once you study shroom ID it becomes easier. Despite all the myths and rumors on how to tell if a mushroon is edible or poisonous, there really is no magic formula for this. The only way is to properly ID the mushroom and go to a reference source to see if it is edible or not. In Michigan last spring 11 people were poisoned when the picked mushrooms they thought were morels. And a morel is IMO the easiest shroom to ID.
And never eat a mushroom that someone online IDs from just a photo. Photos most often don't show all the parts of a mushroom and can be decieving. And trusting someones online word, especially if you don't know them and their mushroom knowledge, is just plain dangerous.
If you are serious about mushrooming get at least two books and find someone to give you a little hands on ID practice. You can pick samples in the field and ID them at home. Keep different species in different bags as one poison mushroom in a bag can poison others.
I know there are a couple other people on Tman that are good at mushroom ID and I'm sure they will give you this same advice BE CAREFUL, mushrooms are nothing to mess with. Each year many people eat the wrong shrooms and suffer poisonings ranging from mild digestive trouble to death.
Here's a tip This is a Yellow-Orange Fly Agaric in button stage. Amanita muscaria, edibilty rating-poisonous.
DON"T EAT THIS ONE!....lol
