In all treatments, vetiver was observed to have higher biomass than common reed (Fig. 1 and Fig. 3). The plants grew luxuriantly in all treatments including those grown in pure Pb/Zn and Cu tailings. Vetiver did not show any toxicity symptoms when grown in both tailings, even though there were high bioavailable heavy metal concentrations in the tailings. It has been suggested that vetiver can produce 99 t/ha/year (average dry matter yield) in southeast China (Zhang, 1998). The results presented here also indicate that this grass will be very useful for revegetation in Pb/Zn mine tailings in addition to Cu mine tailings.