This just happened to me. I will try to look further into it and possibly replicate it in other areas.

I can't believe we never posted a link to our discord server here. Anyway here it is: https://discord.gg/wrCf9sp

So a Twitch user named Spiriax just found this in his casual playthrough:

It looks like you just need to have a money drop onto the spot where the tree is and it will be replaced with it and is just gone. One idea could be to see if you can remove other objects with this glitch and possibly skip some stuff.

PS: He played the Steam version in case it matters.