The humble "Cherry tree" and Gold

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G0lddigg@

Dustin
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There's many indicators in Victoria's gold fields and whilst they are easy to find sometimes we need a little extra help in getting to the bottom. I hope this little bit of info helps you in the field.
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The humble Cherry tree (exocarpos cupressiformis) can help you find two things that can be usefully for both the eluvial prospector and the detectorist, 1 - shallow ground bedrock and 2 - gullies.

Its common to see the cherry tree in the goldfields due to the shallow nature of the ground, these cherry trees look like a cypress tree at a distance but up close have a similar bark to a ironbark with a red core. Whats significant about these cherry trees is that they are a parasite on eucalyptus trees their roots attach themselves to roots of other trees and drain water from them.
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When you're in the bush and you've done some research, you know the area produced gold, you can see your indicators laying around everything is lined up accept you have limited time to detect so where do you start?
The main roots of eucalypts can grow 100 feet outward and generally stay in the top 12 inches of soil whilst only the tap root needs to go down and can go for 6 feet. The main root system will follow crevices and gullies which cant always been seen with the eye. The cherry trees will root right above these root systems to best exploit them.

Sometimes a line will form and this is the power of the cherry tree, you now have an above ground visual of where water travels and or where the shallowest ground is to detect. It may be a gully, it may be a fault, it may just be flat step on a hill that for whatever reason is shallow ground, regardless this information can and will help you especially when detecting out bush.

Ive used these trees to pick a place to park for years and they more often than not lead me to good ground. I firmly believe the more you know about the bush you travel in the more info you will take in, the less likely you are to get lost and the more fun you'll have out there.

This first photo the gully is quite obvious I walked down this gully and found 40-50 shallow shafts, its not rocket science but there's 15 gullies on the way here and none of them had cherry trees.
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Here we are right on top of an adjacent ridge and the cherry trees pin pointed a fault with raised bedrock another great area to sample, it may aswell have been a big sign saying down here.
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more info on exocarpos cupressiformis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocarpos_cupressiformis
 
What the!!! 8)

Seems like friggin rocket science to me!!!

Great info..... Thank for the share
 
so you used the cherry trees to show you shallow wash layers where the bedrock and gold was likely to be within reach of your detector ?

if the cherries were edible you would think they could have grown in gold locations after seeds were dropped by diggers as you sometimes see with Pine Nut trees and Shallots but those cherries are not edible and the tree leaves are toxic so it discounts that possibility. :8

Is there more to it than the cherry tree just being there to parasite off the shallow eucalyptus roots ?

Why is there an abundance of them on that outcrop / fault ? are they chasing water in the fault or do they like the minerals in certain types of quartz ?
 
Yes i detect where i know the detector is capable of detecting, no point swinging in scree thats 10 feet deep whereas these trees like the shallow ground as they need a host tree to survive. so i know 30cm if there's a bit from .5 grams up if i swing over it i'll hear it.

Eucalyptus trees happen to have a wide rooting system that doesn't go deep so the marriage is perfect. Its a misconception that the cherry tree can be eaten they are highly toxic and you only ever get one fruit from each stem meaning they have very little chance of being carried and spread around uch further than the general region. Consider a bird eating these few fruit and the seed would have to be germinated in the right soil, obviously a gully will collect seeds in water run off so they tend to concentarte in perfect lines down a ridge.

You will also see them quite a lot in areas which have been benched by mining activity so regardless of their place they are more often than not in an area whihc has been excavated by man of nature.

I heard from an old fella a few years back tat they were used by the Chinese to make tea and that's where they came from but i highly doubt that and they were known as a toxic tree well before the gold rush. farmers would wipe these trees out before grazing as they were known to kill stock frequently.

i'm sure like all things there are exceptions to the rule, i know they are in QLD but have not seen many of them myself up there, but i victoria in the GT at least they do guide you well.
 
G0lddigg@ said:
Have you seen cherry trees around Sydney Headsup?

didnt notice cherries but will keep a look out now in case there is a pattern found with gold locations.

I have walked through apparently native virgin bush ( green type ) and then stumbled on to dozens of shallots with subsequent exploration revealing chinese diggings , ditto with the mini pine nut trees .

its not bad considering they have been growing there and self seeding for 135 years .

convenient addition to stir fry at camp too ;)
 
Now I do find this extremely interesting. This parasitic relationship is true 100% of the time? I'm casting my mind over some places (not all known gold locations) and start to wonder. I've believed that they were cleared for stock but now this comes to light it makes me do a bit of a double take. Might go bush later this week and sit and contemplate.
 
I dont believe in 100 % but my understanding from research and my personal observations is that they will not survive without a host until they reach maturity and have developed a good tap root with access to water.
 
Goldtarget said:
Now I do find this extremely interesting. This parasitic relationship is true 100% of the time? I'm casting my mind over some places (not all known gold locations) and start to wonder. I've believed that they were cleared for stock but now this comes to light it makes me do a bit of a double take. Might go bush later this week and sit and contemplate.

taking moments to sit , look and contemplate how things formed and why can open big doorways.

our predecessors did amazing things with their brains and virtually no technology ..... there is no reason for us to not reclaim some of those insights.
 
I heard about the cherry trees when I first started detecting.

I have seen a few that have been in an obvious line and have always made a bee line towards them and swung the machine along the line but havent had much luck.

I didnt know about the shallow root thing though. Was just told to look for them and thats where to detect lol.
 
Thanks G0lddigg@. I too have heard about the cherry trees and them being a type of indicator for detecting. Though I never understood the correlation between the tree and potential gold bearing ground and now I do.
Nice work. Cheers.
 

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