Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees – Or Does it?

Apparently, to find money growing on trees all we have to do is move to Australia. Literally. According to a recent ABC news report, CSIRO researches have actually found traces of gold in the leaves of some Australian eucalyptus trees. How cool is that?? The article says:

“CSIRO researchers believe the trees, sitting on top of gold deposits buried deep underground, suck up the gold in their search for moisture during times of drought.”

WIRED magazine also reported this discovery, and I think the following quote does a good job of summing up the event:

Melvyn Lintern and his team at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) conducted the research that discovered trees in Australia and throughout the world can be used to detect gold buried up to 30 metres underground. Small amounts of gold dissolve in the water surrounding the trees, which is sucked up by the roots and eventually stored in the leaves. This effectively provides an easy way for gold miners to identify areas of land likely to contain undiscovered mother lodes. (You can read the full article here, if you’re interested.)

This video also does a concise job of summing up everything I’ve just told you:

Now, before we all go off on a gold rush to seek our fortunes in Australia, let’s not let our imaginations get out of hand. These eucalyptus trees do not look like this:

The leaves didn’t even have enough gold in them to see with the naked eye – According to WIRED you’d need to take the gold from about 500 trees just to make one small ring. But, as the above quote says, this new discovery may make it easier for gold miners to find the areas of land where gold is most likely to be found. Who knew that we could learn something like that from a tree?

Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees – Or Does it? appeared first on FairfaxTreeService.com.