Accumulation of Radioactive Fall-out by Plants in the English Lake District

Abstract

THIS communication reports an exploratory study of radioactivity in natural and cultivated vegetation. Thirty-five species of angiosperms and mosses, representative of a wide range of non-calcareous woodland, bog and fen habitats, were collected, and twenty samples of roots and tops from seven species of cultivated vegetables, near Windermere during early 1958. For a wider view, nineteen collections of the bog moss Sphagnum papillosum were made in various parts of the Lake District, and two near Garrigill and Malham in the Pennines. In addition, eleven stream and lake waters were analysed. Twenty-seven herbarium specimens of wild plants collected in the decade prior to 1947 were also examined. Their activity, due to long-lived natural isotopes, can be taken as little lower than when collected.