Aquatic Plants of Florida

Source: U. of FL, Lena Ma

GAINESVILLE, FL – July 7, 2003 – Researchers at the University of Florida discovered that a fern will soak up arsenic from contaminated soil. Brake Fern – Pteris vittata will absorb up to 200 times more than the concentration in contaminated soils where it was growing.

An example given was a site contaminated with chromium-copper arsenic solution that measured 38.9 parts per million and the ferns had levels higher than 7.5 parts per million of arsenic. The strategy would be to grow these ferns on contaminated sites, harvest the above ground biomass and transfer them to a designated hazardous waste facility.

In Florida cattle ranchers used the poison on their herds to combat fleas and ticks. There are over 3,200 of these sites alone in Florida. Worldwide, there are tens of thousands of these contaminated sites as a result of mining, milling, combustion, wood preservation and pesticides. Three species of these ferns are native to Florida.