Phytoremediation is a promising new green technology that uses plants’ nutritive and water needs to treat or stabilize contaminants from the soil or groundwater. It is an exciting new area of plant study and design that is moving away from the realm of engineers toward the multi-disciplinary approach of landscape architects. While biological and chemical engineers pursue solutions to large-scale or severe anthropogenic contamination of the landscape, this pursuit has the potential to take the field of landscape architecture back to its nineteenth-century roots in the issues of health, infrastructure, and open space. Urban landscapes have multiple spatial and functional objectives. The tools of phytoremediation can serve as a vocabulary of visible ecology function in urban places, expressing ongoing care and ecological health, as well as reminding us of our dependence on industrial technologies.

Endophyte-assisted phytoremediation
Emily Griffith + Stephen Trigueiro
Winter 2012

Introduction
What are endophytes?
Bacteria often live within the internal tissues of plants. Some of this bacteria
is pathogenic, some has no effect on the host, and some benefit the host.
Endophytes are benefi cial bacteria that live in plant roots, stems, and leaves.
Endophytic bacteria can increase plant growth and root mass by:
• fixing atmospheric nitrogen
• sequestering iron from the soil
• synthesising phytohormones and enzymes
• exhibiting strong anti-fungal activity
• antagonising bacterial pathogens
• controlling plant parasitic nematodes (roundworms)

Certain endophytes can also increase plant resistance to drought and even
herbivores.

Endophytes can be found throughout a plant: rhizosphere, roots, stem, or leaves