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Source. Section 7.2, printed pp. 465–466 (published PDF).
Statement. Suppose a retained pseudovertex is inner in a planted tree for a quotient matching . Expand its remembered odd circuit . Let be the attachment in of its matching tree edge, and the attachment of its nonmatching tree edge. Replace in the tree by the even arc of between these vertices, using the zero-edge arc if . The resulting graph is a planted tree for the lifted matching.
Proof. The inner vertex has exactly two tree edges, one matching and one nonmatching. Lift by the unique circuit matching omitting , as in Section 4.14. If , the two arcs between them have opposite parity, since is odd. Along either arc from , the edges of alternate, beginning with a nonmatching edge. Thus the even arc ends with a matching edge at .
Replacing the original degree-two vertex by this path leaves a tree. Label its endpoints inner, and alternate the labels along the even arc. All new inner vertices have degree two, counting the two external tree attachments at its ends. The matching and nonmatching edges alternate through the replacement: the external matching edge covers , and the internal final matching edge covers .
The unused arc's interior is even in size and is matched internally by . No edge of the lifted matching crosses from that interior into the replacement path. Thus the enlarged tree retains its original exposed root and is planted in the expanded graph.
If , use just this one vertex with its two external tree edges. All other circuit vertices are matched internally, and the same conclusions hold. Any child pseudovertices still denote their unchanged blocks and edge attachments; they may be expanded later in the same way.