A poisonous plant that can make you feel like you’ve been “simultaneously electrocuted and set on fire” for months has found a new home in “Britain’s deadliest garden” with just a single touch.
The native Australian plant Dendrocnide moroides, commonly referred to as the gympie-gympie plant and known as ‘the most painful plant on earth’, is now at Alnwick Garden in Northumberland alongside dozens of other similar plants. The garden, which it says is home to around 100 “poisonous, intoxicating and narcotic plants”, unveiled the newcomer on Tuesday.
This leaf comes from a burning shrub native to eastern Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Contact with this leaf can cause human death, but more commonly results in extreme pain that can last for months. /Getty Images
“Imagine being set on fire and being electrocuted at the same time. Do you have this image in mind? Well, this is what an interaction with the native Australian plant Gympie Gympie looks like,” reads the garden’s announcement. “… Known as ‘Australian hollyhock,’ it has been described as the most poisonous plant on earth, with its nettle-like appearance and tiny, brittle hairs that strike when touched.”
According to the State Library of Queensland, the hairs covering the plant “act like hypodermic needles.”
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“When touched, they inject a venom that causes excruciating pain that can last for days or even months,” they say. “…this plant has the dubious honor of being the most painful plant in the world.”
Needle-like hairs of Dendrocnide moroides. Irina Vetter, 2020/Image courtesy University of Queensland.
And according to the British Garden, these hairs, called trichomes, can remain in the skin for up to a year and trigger pain again whenever the skin is touched, comes into contact with water or experiences a change in temperature.
It’s so painful that one woman in Australia, Naomi Lewis, said it wasn’t nearly as painful as childbirth. She slipped into the facility after falling off her bike and down an embankment in Queensland and had to stay in hospital for a week to be treated for the pain. Nine months after the incident, it still felt like someone was “ripping rubber bands on her leg,” she said.
“It was awful, absolutely awful,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this year. “I had four children – three cesareans and one natural. At birth, none of them came close to progressing.”
And it only takes a moment for all of this to happen.
“Touching the tiny hair-like needles for even a second triggers a burning sensation that intensifies over the next 20 to 30 minutes,” Alnwick Garden said, “for weeks or even months.”
To ensure people don’t accidentally bump into it and experience pain firsthand, the poisonous plant is kept in a sealed glass cage with a clear sign that reads “do not touch.”
“We are taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of our gardeners,” the garden said.
But the plant isn’t all scary. Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Queensland said they may have found a way to target the toxins in the plant to relieve pain rather than cause it. By binding the toxin to a specific protein called TMEM233, the toxin has “no effect,” researchers say.
“The persistent pain caused by the stinging trees’ toxins gives us hope that we can convert these compounds into new painkillers or anesthetics with long-lasting effects,” said researcher and professor Irina Vetter. “We are excited to discover a new pain pathway that offers us the potential to develop new pain treatments without the side effects or addiction issues associated with traditional pain relief.”
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Li Cohen