A "breakthrough" discovery about the fern species Blechnum orientale could help to ease the rare earth element (REE) crisis and pave the way for a “green” extraction process for the metals. While the plant is already known to be a hyperaccumulator—which grows in soil and water with high concentrations of metals, absorbing them through its roots—scientists in China have now discovered the plant appears to naturally form tiny crystals containing REEs. “Determining this and proving it was a