"In Trees and Toadstools, Rayner has given us an account, written in clear language understandable to the layman interested in science, of the symbiotic relationship which has been found to prevail between the of many of the higher fungi and forest trees. ... the story of s epochal discoveries, originally initiated as a project to increase the supply of s but resulting in the real opening of research on the important field of forest tree root and fungus association, is well told in simple language."
Mabel Mary Cheveley Rayner was an English botanist specialising in mycology. She published books and articles on plant physiology and was one of the first researchers to propose that mycorrhizal interactions could both help and harm plants.
"As an important member of the flora of Northern Europe, is commonly associated with s of a definite type, especially when it occurs as the dominant or sub-dominant species of moorland associations. As such, it is especially characterists of dry heath soils, deficient in and often ."
"Owing to their lack of and inability to utilize , the stood out as possessing a mode of life fundamentally different from that of green plants. Observations by Pasteur in 1860 and 1862, by in 1879 and 1883, and by in 1883 all showed the former could use a great variety of carbon compounds as food materials."
"Ability to recognize and identify the commoner s is of some practical interest and importance. ... a few are injurious or even violently poisonous. Of these last, the scarlet Fly Agaric () ... with a nearly related species, the Death Cap or Deaths Angel fungus () ... with a pale greenish-yellow , common and abundant species about and trees and in woodlands formed by them, are two of the most notorious. The toadstools of both these species, especially those of the latter, contain virulent poisons and if cooked and eaten in the rest condition, are among the most deadly and dangerous poisons known; the Panther Agaric, , a toadstool with a brown spotted cap, is also common in such woodlands and also poisonous. It is interesting to note that the fleshy caps of these poisonous toadstools are eaten with impunity by s."
"It is not only that the bias of elementary es tends to give the whole subject an aloofness which helps to perpetuate the common attitude that Science is something essentially different and apart from the facts of every day life, it is that it makes it difficult for any but a most experienced and able lecturer to introduce the student to the study of plants in the light of the more recent as well as the older phases of botanical knowledge."
"A fresh attempt to survey the whole field and correlate the problems of nutrition presented by mycorrhiza plants with those in parasites and insectivorous plants was made by at the opening of the new century (Stahl, 1900). This paper, the most comprehensive study of mycorrhiza from the biological point of view since the publication of s theory of in trees, has been freely quoted in the text-books and is probably one of the best-known contributions to the literature of the subject. Two aspects of Stahls work demand attention: firstly, the new hypothesis put forward by him to explain the distribution of fungus infection in s and its beneficial effect upon the hosts, and secondly, the character of the experimental evidence offered in support of his opinions."