Phytoforensics, dendrochemistry, and phytoscreening: New green tools for delineating contaminants from past and present

As plants evolved to be extremely proficient in mass transfer with their surroundings and survive as earth’s dominant biomass, they also accumulate and store some contaminants from surroundings, acting as passive samplers. Novel applications and analytical methods have been utilized to gain information about a wide range of contaminants in the biosphere soil, water, and air, with information available on both past (dendrochemistry) and present (phytoscreening). Collectively these sampling approaches provide rapid, cheap, ecologically friendly, and overall “green” tools termed “Phytoforensics”.