Information on the plant traits specific leaf area (SLA) and relative growth rates (RGR) was obtained from Grime & Hunt (1975) and Hunt & Cornelissen (1997). While the PAH-profiles or PAH-fingerprints (i.e. the contribution of a single compound to the PAH
sum) determined in different species are more or less identical (Fig. 1), the accumulation of organic air pollutants in plants varies by several orders of magnitude. Although this partly reflects different levels of atmospheric pollution, differences in leaf-morphology
and physiology between species must also be recognized as important modifiers of the accumulation of airborne POPs.