Trace elements in land plants: Concentration ranges and accumulators of rare earths, Ba, Ra, Mn, Fe, Co and heavy halogens

Abstract

More than 2000 samales of land plant leaves, mostly of tree, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis in order to find out macroscopic relations between distributions of chemical elements in plants and soil characteristics. The distributions of the elements in plants were also examined from the view point of botanical taxonomy or phylogeny. New species which accumulate Co, rare earths, Ba, Ra, heavy halogens and some other elements have been found. Capability or potentiality for accumulating elements could be related to higher ranks of taxonomy, that is, genus or family. The nature of soil is also found to have profound effects on the extent of accumulation of elements in plants.