Plants accumulating heavy metals in the Sudety Mts

Abstract

The Sudeten flora consists of some plants we can recognize as heavy metal accumulators. Between others there are: Thlaspi caerulescens, Arabidopsis halleri, Armeria maritima ssp. halleri s.l. and probably the endemic fern Asplenium onopteris var. silesiaca. The authors present the concentrations of some important heavy metals measured in aboveground plant dry weight. The highest concentration of zinc was 8220 ppm (Thlaspi), nickel - 3100 ppm (Thlaspi), lead - 83 ppm (Armeria), copper - 611 ppm (Arabidopsis) and cadmium - 28 ppm (Thlaspi). The concentrations depend rather on species or population specification than on ore deposit quality. There are no typical hyperaccumulator among plants we have examined, but some signs of hyperaccumulation of nickel, zinc and lead could be observed. There are no typical endemic taxa, only Asplenium onopteris var. silesiaca and Armeria maritima ssp. halleri may be recognized as neoendemic taxa, but still of unclear systematic position. During the study we tried to find out why some Sudeten vascular plants do not develop heavy metals hyperaccumulation and why they are rather latent hyperaccumulators. Finally, we suggest to protect some metallicolous areas in spite they are rather territories with low plant biodiversity.