THE PERENNIAL PSEUDORHIZA -^.^^ 



several times in this condition, we can believe that the tubercle 

 from which Bulliard's fungi are springing is a true sclerotium. The 

 existence of this sclerotium, however, is not constant ; usually the 

 stipe is attached directly to dead roots or to old pieces of wood 

 embedded in the earth. When one has observed the fungus in a 

 certain place one year and one returns there at about the same time 

 the following year, one almost always again finds individuals of the 

 same species : if one then digs up the fungus carefully, so as to 

 obtain everything that is attached to it, one sees an elongated, 

 irregular, spongy, black body from which spring the new fruit- 

 bodies. This body is not a sclerotium, but rather the stipe of the 

 fruit- body of the previous year, which has served as the root-stock 

 (souche) for new out-growths and which has fulfilled the functions 

 of a sclerotium. In the following year, the stipes of the fruit- 

 bodies of the second year serve in their turn as root-stocks, and so 

 on, successively giving rise to new fruit-bodies ; in such a manner 

 that an Agaricus fusipes which three or four years before had its 

 stipe deejoly buried in the earth ends up by finding itself at the 

 surface. This is the only example of growth of this kind that we 

 know in the numerous families of the Mushrooms and Toadstools 

 {Cham}Agno7is).''' 



More than three centuries ago, in 1578, Clusius, who was living 

 in Hungary, was preparing to write his Brevis Historia — the first 

 monograph on fungi ever published ; ^ and he conceived the happy 

 idea of having a series of paintings made of those species which he 

 wished to describe. He therefore engaged an excellent artist \\ho 

 produced a series of eighty-seven water-colour drawings which are 

 now known as the Codex of Clusius. This Codex, after having 

 been lost for two centuries, was discovered in the library of the 

 University of Leyden in 1874, and was published by Istvanffi at 

 Budapest in 1900 as a tercentenary celebration of the publication 

 of the first monograph on fungi. ^ Plate 78 of the Codex represented 



^ Clusius, Fungonnn in Pdnnuuiid obserratoriaii hreris Historia, KiOl. 



2 G. Istvanffi, A Clusius-C 'ode.r myJcologiai ineltatasa addtokkdl Clusiu.s ehtrajzahoz. 

 Etudes et Commentaires sur Ic Code de VEscluse, augynentes de quelques notices bio- 

 grajMques. Enricliis tie 22 figures et de 91 planches chromolithograpliiees, repro- 

 ductions du Code de I'Escluse, Budapest, 1900, pp. 1--287, publislied by the Author 

 in Magyar and French. 



