THE PERENNIAL PSEUDORHIZA 387 



fruiting year, only one large fruit-body is sent upwards from the 

 root to the surface of the ground. Let us assume that this has 

 happened in the theoretical case under discussion. The single 

 fruit-body Nv'ill consist of a pseudorhiza resembling the pseudorhizae 

 of Collybia radicata, Coprinus macrorhizus, etc., already described 

 in previous pages, an aerial stipe-shaft, and a pileus (Fig. 194, A). 

 A first single fruit-body of this kind I have not as yet been fortunate 

 enough to find. However, Miss Wakefield, when excavating a 

 large fruit-body cluster attached to a buttress-root of a tree in 

 Queen's Cottage Grounds in August, came across the solitary, un- 

 branched, more or less obconic structure shown in Fig. 193. There 

 can be no doubt that this structure, which was unearthed only 

 by accident, was nothing more than the persistent jjseudorhiza 

 of a single fruit-body, which had developed the previous year, 

 which had persisted in the soil for about twelve months, and the 

 apex of which had not as yet given rise to any new fruit-bodies. 

 The pileus and aerial stipe-shaft, which the pseudorhiza had 

 supported, had rotted away, and the top of the pseudorhiza 

 itself had become healed over by a protecting surface layer 

 of tissue. 



From the foregoing we may assume that, in the first year of 

 fruiting, usually or often, one large fruit-body is sent upwards from 

 a root (Fig. 194, A), and that this fruit-body, after sporulation, dies 

 and rots away except for its subterranean pseudorhiza which persists 

 through the ensuing winter (B). In the second year of fruiting, it 

 often happens that the solitary persistent pseudorhiza of the first 

 year produces several large fruit-bodies from rudiments which arise 

 at or near its apex (C). Each of these new fruit-bodies has a 

 pseudorhiza. These second-year fruit-bodies, after shedding their 

 spores, die and rot away except for their jjseudorhizae which persist. 

 Thus, in the second winter, the persistent subterranean structure 

 consists of a central first-year pseudorhiza bearing a number of 

 second-year pseudorhizae (D). In the third year of fruiting, some 

 or all of the second-year pseudorhizae, in their turn, may give rise 

 to new fruit-bodies (E). These, after sporulation, would die down 

 leaving their living pseudorhizae behind (F). Thus, in the suc- 

 ceeding winter, the subterranean structure would consist of a 



