**Acknowledgements**

This research was in part supported by Research Grant No. 64 dd. 08‐09.2014 (RANDOLPH— Relazioni tra nanoparticelle metalliche e piante superiori) from DI4A, University of Udine, Italy. Anastasios Papadiamantis supervised the characterization of nanomaterials carried out at FENAC (Facility for Environmental Nanoscience Analysis and Characterization, University of Birmingham, UK). We are grateful to Iseult Lynch (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK) as well. We like to thank Giorgio Angelo Lucchini (Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences—Production, Landscape, Agro‐energy, University of Milan, Italy) for ICP‐MS analysis; Barbara Piani and Marta Fontana (DI4A, University of Udine, Italy) for HPLC analysis and CHNS, amylose, and glucans analysis, respectively. We are grateful to Rita Musetti (DI4A, University of Udine) who managed the TEM experiments. Last but not the least, the valuable contributions by Filip Pošćić (Institute for Adriatic Crops and Karst Reclamation, Croatia), Costanza Zavalloni (California State University Stanislaus), Guido Fellet, and Massimo Vischi (DI4A, University of Udine) are acknowledged, as well.
