Phytomanagement can be used to reduce the dispersion of trace elements (TE) in the environment. It provides ecosystem services and is economically attractive through the production of non edible biomass (Chalot et al., 2012). However, phytomanagement could face limitations in TE-contaminated sites, such as slow plant growth due to TE phytotoxicity (Mench et al., 2010). To overcome this problem, microorganisms can be used to favor both plant establishment and growth. Among these microorganisms, dark septate endophytes (DSE) are fungi that are abundant in TE-contaminated soils and are usually resistant to TE (Ban et al., 2012; Regvar et al., 2010). They may benefit their host plants by facilitating the uptake of nutrients and by limiting metal toxicity (Likar & Regvar, 2013; Newsham, 2011). These results prompted us to select DSE for future phytomanagement trials. For this purpose, DSE were isolated from roots of trees growing on TE-contaminated soils and we characterised their plant growth promotion (PGP) potential in vitro. Moreover, the PGP activity was tested with inoculated plants growing in TE-contaminated soils.