Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children's books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Beatrix Potter
• is perhaps best known
  • for writing and illustrating children's books
    • such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),
• but she also
  • dedicated herself
    • to mycology,
      • the study of fungi [?] producing more than 350 paintings
        • of the fungal species she observed in nature
      • and
        • submitting her research on spore germination
          • to the Linnean Society of London.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

'Beatrix Potter is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating children's books such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902),'

• This tells us Potter is famous for her children's books.

'but she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of fungi'

• She also studied fungi - that's what mycology means.
• 'The study of fungi' is defining mycology for us.

This is where we have the blank: 'fungi [?] producing more than 350 paintings...'

Let's look at the choices:

• We're deciding what punctuation (if any) should come after 'fungi'
• The options are: semicolon, period, nothing, or comma

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

'producing more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she observed in nature and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London.'

Now let's understand what this is telling us:

• 'Producing more than 350 paintings of the fungal species she observed in nature'
  • This describes one thing Potter did as part of her mycology work
  • She painted fungal species
• 'and submitting her research on spore germination to the Linnean Society of London'
  • This describes another thing she did
  • She submitted research to a scientific society

So the complete picture is:

• She dedicated herself to mycology (the study of fungi) by doing these things:
  • producing paintings
  • submitting research

What do we notice about the structure here?

• 'Producing... and submitting...' are describing HOW she dedicated herself to mycology
• These phrases add extra information about her mycological work
• They're not complete sentences on their own - they depend on the main part of the sentence
• This kind of descriptive phrase needs to be set off with a comma

So we need Choice D: a comma to properly set off this descriptive phrase from the rest of the sentence.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Commas to Set Off Descriptive Phrases

When you have a phrase that adds extra descriptive information about an action or idea already mentioned, you need to set it off with a comma. These phrases (called participial phrases in grammar terms) often begin with -ing words and cannot stand alone as complete sentences:

Pattern:

• Main clause: [Complete thought with subject and verb]
• Comma +
• Descriptive phrase: [Additional information, often starting with -ing word]

Examples:

1. Main clause: The scientist dedicated herself to research
   Descriptive phrase added: The scientist dedicated herself to research, conducting experiments daily and publishing her findings.
   • "conducting" and "publishing" describe HOW she dedicated herself
   • These cannot stand alone as sentences
2. Main clause: The company announced expansion plans
   Descriptive phrase added: The company announced expansion plans, opening three new offices and hiring 200 employees.
   • "opening" and "hiring" describe the expansion
   • Comma sets off this additional information

In our question:

• Main clause: "she also dedicated herself to mycology, the study of fungi"
• Descriptive phrase: "producing more than 350 paintings... and submitting her research..."
• The comma after "fungi" correctly sets off the participial phrase that describes her mycological work