The ability of certain plants to hyper-accumulate metals from soils is well known. Such plants are already being used to remediate contaminated land, but now Inco and Viridian Resources, of Canada, are taking the process one stage further, and using specially bred species to commercially mine nickel in a process known as phytomining. The technique is discussed by Steve Hill in the April 2003 issue of Materials World (pps. 20-22).