Oxidation of atmospheric molecular tritium in plant leaves, lichens and mosses

The oxidation of atmospheric molecular tritium (HT) in vegetation was determined by in vitro experiments for pine needles, pine bark, lichens attached to pine trees, taken from a coastal pine forest in Ibaraki prefecture and comparison of such measurements was made with those in soil. The oxidation of HT in pine needles was extremely low, being only about 1/40000 that in the surface soil of a pine forest, whereas its oxidation in pine bark with a lichen was almost 1000-7000 times higher than that in pine needles. HT oxidation in pine bark, a lichen and a moss was determined in each case under light and dark conditions and was found to be essentially the same. All mosses and lichens examined in the present study were found to have unusually high levels of HT oxidation whether their habitat was tree or ground surface.