386 



RESEARCHES ON FUNGI 



for Miss Wakefield reported to me that she had found six new fruit- 

 body clusters coming up close by as many skewers in exactly the 

 same places as those in which their predecessors had appeared the 

 previous year. The remaining fourteen skewers, with the exception 



of two or three which had 

 B A 



vanished, were also visited, 



but no fruit-body clusters 

 had as yet appeared by 

 any of them. The six 

 positive observations, 

 however, strongly support 

 the view that the pseudo- 

 rhizae are persistent from 

 year to year and give rise 

 to successive crops of 

 fruit-bodies. 



(2) Comparative obser- 

 vations on the structure of 

 pseudorhizae. A consider- 

 able number of stroma-like 

 strands connecting fruit- 

 body clusters with buried 

 roots were unearthed and 

 carefully examined. In 

 every instance their struc- 

 ture was in harmony with 

 the view that a stroma- 

 like strand is either a 

 simple or compound per- 

 sistent pseudorhiza. 

 Mode of Development of a Compound PseTidorhiza.—In order 

 to follow the steps by which a compound persistent pseudorhiza is 

 gradually built up, let us assume : (1) that a stout root of a Beech 

 or an Oak bulled some inches beneath the surface of the ground has 

 become infected with the mj^celium of Collybia fusipes, and (2) that 

 the fungus i)lant is fruiting for the first time. The forms of many 

 old compound pseudorhizae seem to indicate that often, in the first 



Fic 



. lit:}. — Cullybidjusipes. A, a vertical sect ion 

 tliioiigli leaf-mould. /, and soil, *•, showing a 

 small Beech root, r, to which a jiersistent 

 subterranean [xseudorhiza, p, is attached. 

 The pseudorhiza and root are rcpiesented 

 as cut through in a vertical plane. The 

 substance of the pseudorhiza is continuous 

 with the sheet of mycelium m in the rotten 

 root ; n, another very thin sheet of mycelium 

 in the region of the cambium. B, anotiier 

 drawing showing the root, r, and pseudo- 

 rhiza, p, in longitudinal .section (the pseudo- 

 rhiza for convenience in representation lias 

 been bent through a right angle from its 

 natural position shown in A) ; m and )i, .sheets 

 of mycelium in the rotten root. Found in 

 Queen's Cottage (i rounds, Kew, by Mi.ss 

 E. M. Wakefield. Natural size. 



