Pityrogramma calomelanos
silverback fern
Accumulation profile
- Substrate
- Arsenic-contaminated mine soils
- Habitat
- Mine tailings and disturbed ground
- Distribution
- Tropical America, pantropical (naturalised)
- First reported
- 2002 · Francesconi et al.
- Verification
- primary-measured
Description & ecology
Promoted to primary-measured 2026-08-23: Francesconi et al. (2002, Science of the Total Environment 284:27–35, DOI 10.1016/S0048-9697(01)00854-3) report frond arsenic up to 8,350 µg g⁻¹ dry mass (Table 1) from arsenic-contaminated soils in the Ron Phibun district, southern Thailand.
A second, independently confirmed arsenic-hyperaccumulating fern, important for remediation of arsenic-rich tailings in tropical mining regions.
References
- Francesconi, K., Visoothiviseth, P., Sridokchan, W., & Goessler, W. (2002). Arsenic species in an arsenic hyperaccumulating fern, Pityrogramma calomelanos: a potential phytoremediator of arsenic-contaminated soils. Science of the Total Environment, 284, 27-35. doi:10.1016/S0048-9697(01)00854-3
- 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