Final answer:
Elijah found 72 flowers and 8 mushrooms in the forest, with the quantity of flowers being 9 times the mushrooms and the total being 80.
Step-by-step explanation:
Elijah found 9 times as many flowers as mushrooms while walking through the forest. If the total number of flowers and mushrooms is 80, to find out how many flowers there are, we should let the number of mushrooms be 'm' and the number of flowers be '9m' (since it's 9 times the mushrooms).
Now, we can set up an equation: m + 9m = 80. When we combine like terms, we get 10m = 80. To solve for 'm,' we divide both sides of the equation by 10, which gives us m = 8.
Since the number of flowers is 9 times the number of mushrooms, we multiply 8 by 9 to find the number of flowers: 9 * 8 = 72 flowers.