Common reed (Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud.) plants were harvested from four natural water ecosystems of the Bogdanka river catchment (Poznań, Poland) four times throughout the 2014 vegetative season. Over the year, average metal contents followed different decreasing trends according to the analyzed tissue: (leaves), and mean translocation ratios (leaves/rhizomes) were found as follows: 0.93, 0.70, 0.65, 0.40 for Zn, Pb, Cd and Cu, respectively. Metal content increased gradually during the growing season, and in the case of Cu, Cd and Pb exceeded the upper limit of average concentration detected in plants from natural ecosystems. However, the content of salicylic acid did not follow the increase of metal accumulation. In rhizomes, the highest production of the metabolite was observed in May and reached 324 ng g -1 fresh weight (FW) (mean value). Afterwards, a significant drop to 50 ng g -1 FW was observed. Simultaneously, the highest values of total salicylic acid in P. australis leaves were observed in July and accompanied the intensive development of the aboveground biomass of the plant (11.3 lg g -1 FW-mean value). Subsequently, its content in leaves showed a significant decrease down to 2.1 lg g -1 FW in November. Multivariate regression analysis revealed significant interactions between analyzed metals influencing the plant response to metal-derived stress. Cu and Zn showed antagonistic properties considering their uptake and the induction of salicylic acid biosynthesis, whereas non-essential metals (Pb and Cd) acted similarly and stimulated the formation of salicylic acid glucoside.