Plants can be a basic component of environmental recovery. According to this preamble our study is devoted to select the wild ones exploitable in conditions characterized by:

a) Strong summer water stress and/or poorness of nutrients in the soil (for instance quarries and slopes of Mediterranean climate);
b) High content of toxic elements (for instance dumps and leaching water in mining areas).

Plant species selection according to a) is performed by laboratory studies and field trials. In laboratory seed germination is tested and enhanced by different chemical, physical and mechanical treatments. In the field the plant species responses to real conditions were tested by sowing in experimental plots or in areas to be revegetated.

Plant species selection according to b), firstly of the more common ones, is performed by sampling in sites contaminated for a long time, where the plants can evolve a tolerance. On the basis of the contents of the toxic elements in the different plant parts, escluder and accumulator species can be selected. Escluders are useful to reduce the environmental spreading of the contaminants by eolic and water erosion; while accumulators are useful to clean-up the contaminated soil or water. The interesting species are also studied for their tolerance thresholds, for relationships between bioavailability and root uptake of the toxics, for biomass production, reproduction forms more easely performed, etc.