Money might not grow on trees… but gold does. The stuff of fantasies – eternal love, gilt castles and paved streets – can be found in tiny amounts on the leaves of Eucalyptus trees.

But before you yell Eureka… by tiny I mean one fifth of the size of a human hair. It does make me wonder though, how did it get there? To answer that we need to head on out into the universe in search of dying stars.

It is thought that gold was first created when the burnt out heart of two stars collided in a tale of “til-death-do-us-part” that would make Shakespeare weep. A neutron star is the smallest but heaviest type of star (they are heavier than our sun even though they may be as small as 10km across) that is made up almost entirely of neutrons. This is because all the other star stuff has already died off leaving only a burning raging heart.

When two neutron hearts collide it is a simply spectacular explosion that is so hot and fierce it fuses atoms together creating new materials. Almost as if it were the most pure, parting gift, one of these materials is gold.

Scientists believe that a huge quantity of gold (10 moon masses of the stuff) could be thrown out into space from a single neutron star collision. That must be enough to bling-up all the rappers in North America.

If a birth like that wasn’t enough to entrance us, gold also possesses some incredible qualities. We all know that gold is quite soft – particularly if it is high purity – but did you know that it is so flexible that a mere 1 gram can be beaten out into a sheet 1 square metre in size?

Couple this property with its ability to conduct electricity and it is easy to see why it is so useful in the tiny circuits that make your mobile phone work.

One of the reasons gold is such a useful metal is because it is so chilled out.

With an equal number of positive and negative charges in a normal gold atom it is reluctant to react with anything. It is balanced and happy with itself. Like the perfect romance, it does not seek anything else to complete it.

This is the reason gold, unlike silver, doesn’t tarnish – because it is not interested in oxygen at all. And it is only fitting for a story so laced with love and romance that the chemical symbol for gold, Au, comes from the Latin word “aurum” after the Goddess of dawn or the morning glow.

It is for all these reasons that gold can be found in Eucalyptus leaves – tiny chilled out particles that the tree soaks up along with other nutrients from the soil. Like every good love story the feeling runs deep. There is a suggestion that the gold-laced leaves indicate a high level of gold deep underground. Metal detectors at the ready!