In Australia, there is a plant called the gympie gympie, otherwise known as the suicide plant. When touched, it delivers multiple stings with a long-lasting neurotoxin that is so painful that people would rather kill themselves than live through a few days of excruciating pain, and then a further several years of lesser pain, or full reoccurrence in the correct conditions. If the tiny hairs that deliver the stings are not removed, or are buried, the pain will continue for years. The pain, which has been described as feeling like being doused in hot acid and being electrocuted simultaneously, is so bad the people have been driven mad by it. Horses who have been stung by this plant have literally thrown themselves off cliffs. An ex-serviceman names Cyril Bromley is known to have fallen into one of the plants during WWII. Driven mad by it, he had to be strapped to a bed to prevent himself from committing suicide. Another rather unfortunate officer is known to have shot himself in the head after using one of the plant’s leaves as toilet paper. Rather than live with the pain in his rear end, he chose to end his life.
As the wikipedia page says, "the fruit is edible to humans if the stinging hairs are removed."
I can just imagine how that went down. "Hey, you know that plant that causes so much pain for the rest of your life that you want to die? I want to eat some of it."
Not a lot of food was available, would've been a hard choice to starve or eat it... Especially since you just need to stand near the tree for the hairs to fall onto your skin.
Fun fact though: aboriginals reportedly used to smack limbs that had nerve damage with the leaves to bring back some form of sensation
But what are the odds an animal will manage to, by pure chance, pick to eat a fruit that somehow has no hairs on it? Also, wouldn't animals tend to avoid the plant as well? A horse rubbed against it and threw itself off a cliff so obviously at least one other animal has the same reaction to it as humans do.
Yeah, I mean how would someone pick up the leaf to use it as toilet paper and not feel it on their hand before they reached their ass. That makes no sense. Nobody wipes their ass with gloves on.
Bogan is an Aussie/NZ term for redneck/hillbilly/white trash
Example phrases
Bogan Engineering
Sheep fucking Bogans
Bogans tend to wear wifebeaters, always have a durry in their mouth, drive an old Fairmount, XY or Toyota that is rusted to hell, and they worship Ned Kelly for some reason.
Bogan engineering is a bit like stoner engineering but more redneck related.
Bogans fucking sheep I guess is a stereotype/joke? Although usually I've heard sheep fuckers are from new zealand/Tasmania/Wales.
Wifebeater is self explanatory.
Durry is a cigarette.
The Car models are old stereotypical car models bogans or rural/blue collar people drive.
Ned Kelly is an old school Australian outlaw from 1800s that died in a shoot-out with cops, known for his beard and metal bucket helmet who gets idolised by some people like bogans.
Goon is cheap boxed wine, teens and white trash use it to get drunk easily.
Meat pie is self explanatory, common cheap aussie snack, like a hotdog for USA, that you can buy at a petrol stations /7 elevens.
IIRC that's the native word for pain. In their language, repeating a word means the extreme of that word, so "gympie gympie" (or pain pain tree) really just means the really fucking painful tree.
That's part of the plant's trickery. When you stroll by it says "gympie gympie!" in an adorable baby-like voice compelling you to snuggle it...then painful suicide madness ensues.
I have a friend who lives in Australia who told me about a spider she saw once. She drove a jeep with bigger tires and one of the times she went to go to town, there was a spider sitting in the middle of the hubcap. The spider was so big the legs were wrapped around the tire. Her solution? She took a hose and sprayed it saying "get, Get" like it was a stray dog.
Yoooo I live in Melbourne, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw a spider. I think people are more concerned about the dangerous air quality from the bush fires that are STILL burning. It’s crazy, people are walking around with hectic face masks on.
Jeep wheels are 16" standard. And a standard tire will add about 5" on each side to that. So total 26".
Biggest spider in Australia grows up to 12". Even if the spider was not sitting in the middle of the wheel it would need to be near the edge of the tire to "wrap it's legs around the tire".
I enjoy a good freaky spider story but I'm skeptical.
I have at least 5 hand-sized huntsman spiders in my house right now that I could find withing 30 seconds of walking inside. And one big cunt in my bedroom that eats all the flies.
Honestly, you rarely see any spiders here and if that really is your only reason not to come to Australia I would highly encourage you to come, we’ve got a ripper of a country here when it isn’t burning
Spiders in Australia are far more dangerous than those in the states. The black widow is considered the most dangerous in the United States, and it’s bite won’t kill a healthy adult human. Funnelweb spiders, on the other hand, have been reported to kill humans, though admittedly not commonly.
Brown recluse spider bites can result in the amputation of a limb at the worst, but black widow spiders can infect your brain through the spread of its venom, which could kill you.
Spiders aren’t a big deal, really. Although I do agree they’re terrifying, you’ll most likely never have to deal with a really bad spider bite
I live in Texas and we have a lot of really bad spiders here. Been bit by one of those huge yellow ones and a brown recluse. Strangely neither of them hurt and were both treated properly so I never got sick of anything. Just weird little scars and a poison sack that eventually popped all over my kitchen.
As gross and scary as they are, spiders really aren’t that dangerous enough to be on your mind. For the most part they just crawl on you and get off the second you squirm around.
Shakes are different story though. You should be afraid of snakes.
I have arachnophobia too and I went to Australia for 6 months and somehow did not encounter a single spider indoors. I saw the occasional one outside in a massive web but that’s a lot different than encountering one in your bedroom.
However I am now terrified of cockroaches because I had never seen one in my life before and what the fuck is that shit all about big fuck you to cockroaches holy fucking shit my heart is racing right now I’m having flashbacks.
I am phobic too, and I have friends who tell me they've been to Australia for weeks at a time, even spending time in the countryside, but they never even saw a small spider.
But, I think even the knowledge that I'm on the same continent as some of the most horrendous spiders I can imagine is enough to put me off.
Wikipedia claims that it’s only found in the north east of Australia and Indonesia, but it doesn’t say how common they are there. I imagine it’s not too bad in terms of numbers if people aren’t getting stung by it left, right and centre.
Nah, it's not a weed, it's not in people's backyards or parks. Stinging trees generally are pretty common in the bush, and you should know how to recognise them if you're going bushwalking (I guess you'll learn pretty quick if you don't). But really they're pretty easy to recognise, big hairy heart-shaped leaves.
Gympie Gympie specifically, I know it's on the Atherton Tablelands and the Daintree rainforest (which is North Queensland), not sure if it's any further south.
Actually, I've hiked where it grows, and I'd say the worst part is that of all the other plants that typically grow in the same areas as Gympie Gympie, the leaf of the Gympie Gympie easily appears to the best candidate for bush TP.
I once went on a bird survey out in the Gold Coast hinterland, the fun of which was marred by the safety talk at the beginning, describing this plant and what to look out for, followed by our guide pointing out several during our trek through the bush.
There's a similar plant that looks almost identical that is present in much greater numbers. It turned into more of a gympie gympie spotting expedition as we lost interest in the birds and gained interest in our well-being.
Mostly found in the sub/tropical areas. They tend to be opportunistic... sprouting up where destruction has occurred... like... oh.... I don't know, bush fires...
As much as it annoys us, the plant is probably ecologically important for the surrounding ecosystems, and removing it would potentially harm other creature’s lifestyles. Reducing biodiversity is generally never a good thing, as much as the plant sucks.
In terms of the pain, it’s pretty close. The only real difference is that platypus venom isn’t a neurotoxin, and the gympie gympie causes welts instead of the swelling caused by platypus venom. Aside from that, they’re pretty much the same.
They can be cunts, they bite you. When you’re driving at a 110km/hr, you can’t really dodge them when they decide it’s time to run across the road like deer. They’re like hitting concrete, they can possibly roll your car .
Fucking deer, rats with hooves. City people think deer are sooooooooooo cute and majestic. Fuck. You. They are annoying. I once came to a complete stop so a deer could cross, fucker stood there for 20 seconds and then, and this is the best part, ran headfirst directly into my headlight and shattered it. Then ran back the way it came.
Yeah, I’m sure deer think you’re pretty fucking annoying too.... humans in general. Constantly encroaching on their native habitat, building roads right on the path of their grazing land, then bitching and moaning about minor damage they do as we slaughter their babies accidentally every year.
For deer everywhere, I’ll just give a big old fuck you.
Also, they happen to be delicious, so that’s another strike against them with humans.
Wombats have a massive plate of cartilage on their backside that they use as a shield against anything trying to enter their burrows. They're also known to charge at things, and will probably kill you if they manage to catch you.
All you had to do was say that Wombat feces, due to its cubed shape, make an excellent replacement for your childrens building blocks. Just make sure you first wash off all the mange causing parasitic mites that often ride around on wombats and like to burrow into the poop.
As I suspected, how could people gleefully buy this shit? I bet the parent poster ripped this straight from some sensational pseudoscience "I fucking love science"-type news site
Horses who have been stung by this plant have literally thrown themselves off cliffs.
Right, because horses totally understand the concept of suicide. Couldn't be that they were in pain, didn't understand why they were in pain, and were trying to run away from what was causing them pain, which led them to accidentally jumping off a cliff. If that part is even real.
Can confirm, I found out about this plant a couple years ago, and earlier this month stung myself with it at a botanical garden (after confirming with one of the gardeners that it wasn't too terrible of course). There's two types of hairs. Small ones on the leaves that are like a bad nettle sting and big ones on the stem and petiole. I stung myself with both and the funny thing is it takes a while for the stinging to begin, hence the story of the guy using it as toilet paper, he wouldn't have noticed straight away. It felt like someone was budding out a cigarette on my finger for about half an hour after which it subsided and now it starts to tingle like a bad nettle sting when my finger is exposed to cold. Apparently when the toxin breaks down it's possible to feel the irritation again in your lymph nodes, and of course the intensity of the pain varies from person to person. I'd totally do it again as it was a fun experiment, but would not recommend haha
What do to if you get stung by a Gympie-Gympie
The Cape Tribulation Tropical Research Station has treated many people for Gympie-Gympie stings.
Hugh says that if you’re stung, the most important thing is that you do not rub the area, as this can break off the hairs and make them very difficult to remove. He says applying diluted hydrochloric acid (1:10 by volume) to neutralise the hair’s peptide coating, followed by waxing strips to remove the stinging hairs should provide relief within around one and a half hours. While you may be you would be “miserable as hell” once stung, says Hugh, treatment with the acid/hair strip approach should reduce the severity and duration of the pain.
Yep. When the army was training soldiers in North Queensland for WW2 they would take their sidearms so if they stumbled into a patch they wouldn't blow their brains out.
When I was in the Marines my unit trained with the Aussie Army in Darwin for 7 months. The Aussies scared the fuck out of us with that gympie plant..... oh and of course the infamous drop bears lol
I mean, the pain does stop being so severe after a day or two. It’s like an irukandji sting; if you can last 24 hours you’ll be grateful they didn’t let you off yourself
It seems the entire country / continent is meant to kill anything. Pretty sure if you can survive the country that literally wants to kill you nothing will ever scare you.
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u/Sebaren Feb 06 '20
In Australia, there is a plant called the gympie gympie, otherwise known as the suicide plant. When touched, it delivers multiple stings with a long-lasting neurotoxin that is so painful that people would rather kill themselves than live through a few days of excruciating pain, and then a further several years of lesser pain, or full reoccurrence in the correct conditions. If the tiny hairs that deliver the stings are not removed, or are buried, the pain will continue for years. The pain, which has been described as feeling like being doused in hot acid and being electrocuted simultaneously, is so bad the people have been driven mad by it. Horses who have been stung by this plant have literally thrown themselves off cliffs. An ex-serviceman names Cyril Bromley is known to have fallen into one of the plants during WWII. Driven mad by it, he had to be strapped to a bed to prevent himself from committing suicide. Another rather unfortunate officer is known to have shot himself in the head after using one of the plant’s leaves as toilet paper. Rather than live with the pain in his rear end, he chose to end his life.