Sodium chloride accumulation in glycophyte plants with cyanobacterial symbionts.

The majority of plant species are glycophytes and are not salt-tolerant and maintain low sodium levels within their tissues; if high tissue sodium concentrations do occur, it is in response to elevated environmental salt levels. Here we report an apparently novel and taxonomically diverse grouping of plants that continuously maintain high tissue sodium contents and share the rare feature of possessing symbiotic cyanobacteria. Leaves of in Tierra del Fuego always had sodium contents (dry weight basis) of around 4.