Affiliations: School of Life Sciences, State Key Laboratory for
Bio-Control, Sun Yatsen (Zhongshan) University, Guangzhou 510275, China | Hunan City College, Yiyang 413049, China | South China Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China
Abstract: A field experiment was conducted to compare the growth and metal
accumulation of Vertiveria zizanioides, Paspalum notatum, Cynodon dactylon and
Imperata cylindraca var. major on the tailings, amended with 10 cm domestic
refuse + complex NPk fertilizer (Treatment A), 10 cm domestic refuse (Treatment
B) and complex NPK fertilizer (Treatment C) respectively, and without any
amendment used as control(Treatment D). The results indicated that V.
zizanioides was a typical heavy metal excluder, because the concentrations in
shoots of the plants were the lowest among the four plants tested. The most of
metal accumulated in V. zizanioides distributed in its root, and transportation
of metal in this plant from root to shoot was restricted. Therefore, V.
zizanioides was more suitable for phytostabilization of toxic mined lands than
P. notatum and C. dactylon, which accumulated a relatively high level of metals
in their shoots and roots. It was also found that I. cylindraca var. major
accumulated lower amounts of Pb, Zn and Cu than C. dactylon and P. notatum, and
could also be considered for phytostalilisaton of tailings. Although the
metal (Pb, Zn and Cu) concentrations in shoots and roots of V. zizanioides were
the lowest, the total amounts of heavy metals accumulated in shoots of V.
zizanioides were the highest among the four tested plants due to the highest
dry weight yield of it. The results indicated that V. zizanioides was the best
choice among the four species used for phytoremediation (for both
phytostabilization and phytoextraction) of metal contaminated soils.
Keywords: Pb/Zn tailings, heavy metals, phytoremediation, Vertiveria zizanioides, Paspalum notatum, Cynodon dactylon, Imperata cylindraca var. major
