Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, but Gold Does

We have all heard that money does not grow on trees, however scientists in Western Australia have found that gold does. They found that eucalyptus trees growing in an area which is said to be above a sizable gold deposit have got a higher content of gold in their leaves, branches and twigs.

Initially it was believed that the gold particles must have been blown by dust and landed on the trees giving its individual parts a dusting of the precious metal. Now the scientists believe that the gold has actually come from the deposit under the ground through the trees themselves.

In general background concentrations of gold in vegetation are typically less than 2 parts per billion (ppb) however in this area they have found gold levels up to 80 ppb. Field tests in Australia showed that eucalyptus trees growing above a deposit lying 35 meters underground had 20 times more gold in the gummy substances coating their leaves than did trees that grew 800 meters away.

Evidence enough to suggest that gold truly did grow on the trees. The next science project to try and prove this theory involved growing seedlings in greenhouses insulated from airborne dust and watering them with gold-laced solutions. It is interesting to note that plants did actually pick up the metal through from the soil through their roots and deposit them in their leaves.