Polygene allosporia
With wind-based distribution, it was inevitable that some Short Featherstalk (Polygene altumpellus) spore pods would burst in a rare rainstorm and fail to grow from desiccation. Often this would lead to them dying over time greater investment in the spore stage allowed them to survive for longer periods without water. This led a new species, Polygene allosporia.
It has a broad mycelial network which consumes detritus over a wide area and a short thick 6cm tall stalk which retains water. The real difference compared to its ancestor are the spores. Rather than attempting to grow a stalk right away the 20µm long spores remain as a single cells as long as conditions are unfavorable.
In this state they retain the ability to decompose organic matter and they can even perform mitosis if there is enough nutrients but not enough water to germinate. They are able to do this because, like their ancestor, they do not digest food inside their bodies and instead secrete digestive enzymes directly onto the detritus. To survive the desert environment in such a long term, the main changes to the spores are enlarged water vacuoles and thickened cell walls to store water and prevent desiccation, respectively. Polygene allosporia break down muscal matter alongside polyphs, producing new types of enzymes.
After spending weeks or even months as single-celled spores rain eventually returns which Polygene allosporia detects with specialized proteins that bind to the water molecules; if the period of high moisture lasts longer than 6 hours the spore finally germinates and grows. With the number of spores that might be created by mitosis, blooms of the species are much larger than those of their ancestor, with new featherstalks sometimes all over the place after rain. Wind eventually picks up their feathered spore pods which burst in the next rain, repeating the cycle again.
