New species of Plant that feed on Metals discovered

New species of plant called Rinorea niccolifera have been discovered (by scientist from the University of the Philippines, Los Banos), to be a new plant species with an unusual lifestyle, it belongs to the family Violaceae. It eats Nickel for a living, as it accumulate up to 18,000 ppm of the metal in its leaves without itself being poisoned. The new species was discovered on the western part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, an area known for soils rich in heavy metals. It is a hyper accumulator, as it can be grown and harvested in order to recover commercially valuable metals in plant shoots from metal-rich sites.