Plants containing the element gold are already widely known. The flowering perennial plant alfafa, for example, has been cultivated by scientists to contain pure gold in its plant tissue. Now researchers from the Sun Yat-sen University in China have identified and investigated the characteristics of gold nanoparticles in two plant species growing in their natural environments. The study, led by Xiaoen Luo, is published in Springer’s journal Environmental Chemistry Letters and has implications for the way gold nanoparticles are produced and absorbed from the environment.