There’s Gold in Them …Trees?

I always wished money grew on trees so maybe I could consider the determination that gold, not exactly 24 carat though I am talking actual gold, can be found in Australian eucalyptus trees leaves a wish come true. Gold, though toxic to trees and plants, has been found in the leaves of some eucalyptus trees in Australia. These trees, complete with gold in their leaves, are found growing above actual gold deposits up to 40 meters deep in the earth below them. Apparently some of the gold in these deposits dissolves as ions in water and are sucked up by the trees roots. The gold ions are then trapped in calcium oxalate crystals to render them harmless to the tree and stored in the tree’s leaves and bark in as many as 100 parts per billion, enough to make using trees to find gold in areas where exploratory drilling and other methods is too difficult the way to go. Perhaps this answers the age old question, Why did the chicken cross the road, I mean prospector climb the tree? And gives a new meaning to the words gold leaf.