Backyard Scientist Touches The World's Most Painful Plant

June 28, 2021

One of the world's most venomous plants, the Gympie-Gympie can cause months of excruciating pain for unsuspecting humans.

The plant dubbed "the suicide plant" grows in rainforests throughout Queensland and northern NSW.

Botanist Marina Hurley said being stung by this plant is "the worst kind of pain you can imagine" and "like being burned by hot acid and electrocuted at the same time."

How does it work?

Gympie-Gympie stinging trees have dense hairs on their leaves, stems and fruit that look like soft fur. The tip of the hair is a small bulb that breaks off on contact, then the hair penetrates the skin and injects toxin.

The toxins retain its pain producing properties for DECADES.

So, backyard scientists William Osman and Peter Sripol touched the plant to see if the plant lives up to the hype -- and to see what works to relieve the pain.