THE PERENNIAL PSEUDORHIZA 381 



of the Collybia. The rotten wood was white. Upon the exterior 

 of the root, the mycelium had formed a thin black crust which was 

 continuous with the black outer covering of the stroma-like fungal 

 strand to which the fruit-bodies were attached. The root was 

 traced three feet toward the tree-trunk and found to be dead and 

 rotten throughout this distance ; but it could not be followed any 

 further owing to difficulties of excavation. Neighbouring roots 

 interlacing above and below the rotten one were living and quite 

 sound. 



The stroma-like strand connecting the Beech root with the fruit- 

 bodies in the manner just described (Fig. 189) was, as comparative 

 observations made upon many similar strands has taught me, 

 nothing more or less than a swollen sympodium of persistent stipe- 

 bases or pseudorhizae, representing the remains of two or three 

 crops of fruit-bodies produced in as many years. In shape it was 

 irregularly cylindrical-obconic. Its height was about 3 inches, its 

 diameter at its base where it was attached to the root 0-3 inch, and 

 its maximum diameter, 2-5 inches above its base, about 2 inches. 

 From the swollen top of the persistent pseudorhizal strand arose 

 the newly formed fruit-bodies, all attached to it by black and 

 remarkably attenuated stipe-bases (pseudorhizae). The extreme 

 basal parts of the new stipes were only • 1-0 • 2 inch in diameter ; 

 but, as the stipes passed upwards through some two or three inches 

 of leaf-mould, they thickened out and finally attained a maximum 

 diameter of 0-5-0-75 inch. Within each stipe were wavy parallel 

 strands of fibres. In addition to the five large fruit-bodies, the 

 cluster contained a number of rudimentary ones, which were attached 

 to the top of the persistent stipe-strand but which had never pushed 

 themselves up freely into the air. The upper parts of several of 

 these rudimentary fruit-bodies appeared to be in a state of decay. 



A second fruit-body cluster, younger than that just described, 

 was situated only 1 - 5 feet from the trunk of the Beech tree (Fig. 190, 

 to the right). After the soil about its base had been removed, it 

 was found that the fruit-bodies were all attached by means of a 

 persistent pseudorhizal strand to a stout root which was oval in 

 cross-section and which measured 5 • 5 inches from above downwards 

 and 1 - 75 inches in width. In this instance the root, which was traced 



