Broom and orchids, so plants adapt to toxic environments
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The resilience of plants always offers some surprises. Almost fifty years later, the orchids are now blooming in Zone A of Seveso, the area most affected by the dioxin cloud in the summer of 1976. In an even more extreme environment, the Mefite geosite in the province of Avellino, made its way a broom that is not affected by the record concentrations of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. The low competition with other competitors and the relative physical isolation of these toxic habitats, or with a problematic past, favor them plants that tolerate poisons and disasters. Examples that recall the phenomenon ofHibakujumokua Japanese expression used to indicate all the trees that survived the atomic bombingsor the forests that have developed in the area of the nuclear power plant Chernobyl. In Italy there are several: from Vajont giant sequoia to the Seveso black poplarthe only plant left standing after the crash at ICMESA plant in Meda.
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The Seveso black poplar it was the symbol of rebirth of the area which, after the reclamation works, was recovered in 1984 with a project for a natural park of almost fifty hectares. The entire topsoil in the area has been replaced with material from non-contaminated areas. Today it’s called Oak forest, hosts about fifty thousand trees, shrubs and plants that seem to emerge from a remote past. Like the two recently discovered orchids: the Cephalanthera longifolia and the even rarer Cephalanthera damasonium. In a few days, the custody agreement will be signed to protect these two species in the Park within the European LifeOrchids project coordinated by the University of Turin and Legambiente Lombardia.
“These orchids are among the last autochthonous species of lowland environments that grew spontaneously in the woods. – he explains Lia Mantegazzaprofessor of the Agricultural School of Limbiate who has participated in various research projects in the Park – The entire park today seems to evolve towards that form of natural habitat called Querco-Carpineto which dominated the landscape of the upper Po valley before urbanization “.
For safety, some specimens of the Cephalanthera longifolia they were transferred to pots and taken to the Città Studi botanical garden for ex-situ conservation. It is as if the excavations and reclamation works – but this is only a hypothesis – have partially brought to light pre-existing environments that had been buried underground for hundreds of years. This would also be demonstrated by the effort some trees make in the Park, this time transplanted by man, such as the Birch and the ash tree. The two Seveso orchids they are not even present in the neighboring natural areas such as the Groane Park and the same goes for the cervix tongue (Phyllitis scolopendrium), a fern that has colonized the manhole covers.
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The Cephalanthera del Bosco delle Querce are however not the only ones in Italy of this family to prefer what by now appear to be the ruins of industrial activity: there are also other orchids that populate the waste lands in the abandoned mines Of zinc and lead at Domusnovas in Sardinia. But the degree of maximum weight in this category of plants of toxic environments belongs to a minor broom population (Genista tinctoria) which colonized the Mefite of the Ansanto valley, an ancient natural spring of carbon dioxide to other lethal gases already mentioned by Virgil in the Aeneid. On the perimeter of this geosite, which is not of volcanic origin, it is not uncommon to find carcasses of dead animals and the fumes are also fatal for humans.
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According to a recent study by the University of Naples Federico II published in the latest issue of the magazine Botanical Journal of the Linnean Societythe physical barriers and thegeographical isolation have probably favored the birth of a ecotype, or a plant adapted to this poisoned atmosphere where other plants certainly survive, but much smaller ones, and various bacteria. But this broom has something extra because it seems to reject any domesticated environment a priori: when they transported some specimens to the botanical garden, they all died.
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