ABSTRACT
The term mycorrhiza (fungus-root) was first coined by a German scientist to describe the symbiotic association of specialized soil fungi with plant roots (Frank, 1885). He also realized that the association was natural and probably beneficial to the host plant. Mycorrhizae were not considered by the scientific community to be more than a curiosity until the 1950s. Harley’s book, The Biology of Mycorrhiza, published in 1959, became a major foundation for the science of these amazing fungi. Since then several articles have been published in this subject (Mosse, 1973). The field has generally been divided in two main types of mycorrhizae: Ectomycorrhizae, which occur on trees such as pines, firs, oaks, eucalyptus, alder, and birches, and endomycorrhizae, which occur on the rest of the plants on earth except members of a few families that do not form any mycorrhizae. The agriculturally produced crop plants that form endomycorrhizae of the vesiculararbuscular mycorrhiza type (VAM) are now called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF).
