Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1887 — Plant Allies. [ARTICLE]

Plant Allies.

While some forms of fungus are most destructive to vegetat'on, it is now believed that there are others which render assistance to the plants on which they live. Frank found that the fungus covering the young root points of certain forest trees, as the beech and the oak, seems to help in the nutrition cf those trees. Another interest ng case has lately been studied in Germany by Wahrlicb, who finds that a yellow bladder-like fungus of the root-tissue of orchids works no perceptible harm to the plants, but on the contrary probably aids them by changing woody matters into a form that they may more readily absorb. , „