Plants that mine metal from the ground up

Some plants do more than tolerate metal in the soil: they draw it into their living tissue at extraordinary concentrations. This site is a vendor-neutral scientific reference for those species. Browse eleven elements, trace every figure to a published source, and follow the botanical frontiers of phytoremediation and agromining.

Browse by metal → Open the species table

Browse by metal

Ni Nickel Primary · > 1,000 µg g⁻¹ 34 species Zn Zinc Primary · > 3,000 µg g⁻¹ 8 species Cd Cadmium Primary · > 100 µg g⁻¹ 7 species Co Cobalt Primary · > 300 µg g⁻¹ 4 species Mn Manganese Primary · > 10,000 µg g⁻¹ 10 species REE Rare Earth Elements Primary · > 1,000 µg g⁻¹ ΣREE 8 species Cu Copper Tracked · > 300 µg g⁻¹ 4 species As Arsenic Tracked · > 1,000 µg g⁻¹ 2 species Se Selenium Tracked · > 100 µg g⁻¹ 4 species Tl Thallium Tracked · > 100 µg g⁻¹ 7 species Pb Lead Tracked · > 1,000 µg g⁻¹ 1 species

Counts are derived live from the database. How records are verified →

Landmark accumulators

A Astragalus bisulcatus Fabaceae · North America (western) 14,900 µg g⁻¹ Se · 149× threshold N Noccaea caerulescens Brassicaceae · Western & Central Europe 40,000 µg g⁻¹ Zn · 13.3× threshold P Psychotria douarrei Rubiaceae · New Caledonia 47,500 µg g⁻¹ Ni · 47.5× threshold P Pteris vittata Pteridaceae · Pantropical and subtropical 22,630 µg g⁻¹ As · 22.6× threshold

How a species earns its place

A plant counts as a hyperaccumulator only when its living above-ground tissue exceeds a defined, element-specific threshold: 1,000 µg g⁻¹ dry weight for nickel, just 100 for cadmium. Thresholds follow van der Ent et al. (2013). Every record here cites the source of its concentration and carries a verification level, so you can see exactly how firmly each figure is established.

Read the methodology →

From the field

Industry The other product of a rare-earth fern: carbonised Dicranopteris biomass locks lead, copper and cadmium into orchard soil July 24, 2026 Literature A vernalization-free way to transform Noccaea caerulescens shifts the bottleneck from years to accessions July 23, 2026 Industry What nickel agromining actually recovers, and what still limits it July 22, 2026

All updates →

Open, citable data

The full species table is available as structured data under CC BY 4.0, with attribution to the cited primary sources. Reuse it, cite it, build on it.

species.json species.csv