Phytolacca americana
American pokeweed
Accumulation profile
- Substrate
- Contaminated and manganese-rich soils
- Habitat
- Disturbed ground
- Distribution
- North America, naturalised in East Asia
- First reported
- 2008 · Peng et al.
- Verification
- review-cited
Description & ecology
A high-biomass perennial that accumulates both cadmium and manganese, studied in China for the remediation of multiply contaminated soils.
Audit note 2026-09-06: the Mn maximum is confirmed verbatim at the primary source's abstract — Peng et al. (2008, J. Hazardous Materials 154:674–681, doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2007.10.080) report 'a maximum 13,400 mg kg−1 in the leaves' (field, manganese-contaminated soils, Hunan). The Cd figure of 130 µg/g could NOT be verified: it is absent from the abstract and a citing paper claims Peng et al. 2008 showed '>0.24% Cd of leaf dry weight' (>2,400 µg/g) — a direct contradiction resolvable only in the paywalled full text. The record therefore stays review-cited; treat the Cd 130 value as unconfirmed.
References
- Peng, K., Luo, C., You, W., Lian, C., Li, X., & Shen, Z. (2008). Manganese uptake and interactions with cadmium in the hyperaccumulator — Phytolacca americana L.. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 154, 674–681. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2007.10.080
- Reeves, R. D., Baker, A. J. M., Jaffré, T., Erskine, P. D., Echevarria, G., & van der Ent, A. (2018). A global database for plants that hyperaccumulate metal and metalloid trace elements. New Phytologist, 218, 407–411. doi:10.1111/nph.14907