- I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the sting zone
with Australia's second most awful stinging tree.
Here we go.
1,
2,
3.
(screams) (dramatic drum music)
So why in the world would I want to be intentionally stung
by this plant species?
Well, we wanna figure out a couple of things.
Number one, how susceptible am I to plant venoms?
Number two, is the sting really as bad as I've read about?
And number three, if you do run into this plant in the wild
what are some ways that you can help alleviate the pain
and remove the nettles from your arm?
That's what they call in the industry,
the devil's toilet paper.
All right, should we keep hiking
and find one that's a little bit bigger?
- [Partner] Oh, this whole hillside look.
- Holy cow. The hillside is literally filled with these.
That is all giant stinging trees right there.
A lot easier to find stinging plants
than it is the stinging insects.
Looks like we've got our pick of the crop out here.
Now it's just a matter of finding the right leaf
that's gonna put this forearm into a world of pain.
This tree behind me right here
would not be considered a giant.
It's just a baby.
But believe it or not this species can grow
to be nearly a hundred feet in height.
Now, as they get bigger, the spines on their main stem
their trunk, so to speak, begin to evolve away
and all of the irritating nettles are just
on the stalks and the leaves themselves.
As you can see
these leaves have holes in them from caterpillars.
You think that this defense would've evolved to take care
of things like insects that are going to eat the leaves
but really this toxin only affects mammals.
Okay, so this is the leaf I'm gonna go for right here.
And plant, thank you for letting us use one of your leaves.
I'm gonna be very gentle about this, almost
like a game of operation to work my arm in here
so that I don't accidentally bump any of the other leaves.
I'm gonna cut this right at the base.
Okay. There we go.
The Australian giant stinging tree. Looks very unassuming.
Now, before we get into the exciting part,
the sting of it all, I wanna just take a look at this leaf.
We're gonna show you guys some macro shots
of the nettles that are on the undersides.
These are known as trichomes, and the trichomes
specifically are like little barbs filled with a neurotoxin.
Scientists believe that this neurotoxin is very similar
to that which you find in the cone snail,
one of the most painful stings in the marine animal kingdom.
Now, I've never been stung by cone snail
because it said that if you take a cone snail sting,
you will be hospitalized.
The way those trichomes work is that if you picture a needle
with the tip of it being very sharp, hypodermic in nature,
that tip breaks off once those little hairs touch skin
and they release that toxin causing massive irritation
which triggers your pain receptors.
And what's really unique is that scientists don't know
why the pain receptors are set off
and last as long as they do.
Now, those trichomes are located on the top of the leaf
but also on the underside and all along the stem. (exhales)
Okay, I think it's time to get down to business here.
What's crazy about this is I'm not going
to be able to remove these nettles.
They in a sense are microscopic, especially
once they get into your skin and like shards of fiberglass
they're going to work their way down and in.
The pain will begin to come on within a matter of seconds
and will get worse and worse as the minutes go by.
Now, we do have a method
that I've read about that could possibly remove
some of those nettles from my arm.
But first things first,
we've gotta get the nettles into the skin.
I'm Coyote Peterson and I'm about to enter the pain zone
with the Australian giant stinging tree.
Here we go.
1,
2,
I don't need to smack my arm.
All I need to do is gently graze the leaf
over the forearm like this
and I'm gonna be nettled multiple times.
(dramatic music) Oh boy.
3. (dramatic music)
Oh my!
Ah! (inhales)
(exhales)
Sheez!
Holy immediate stinging pain.
Oh, oh, oh my gosh.
That is instantaneous. Okay, it's not a slow lead on.
It is the second the leaf touches your skin
it feels like if you were to put pop rocks
in your mouth and they start exploding, ah
and then they just start hurting right away.
(groans)
Holy cow. Holy cow.
That is getting worse as the seconds go by.
(grunts)
Okay, so you can start to see
all those little welts forming.
The arm is beginning to turn red.
This is sort of like the jellyfish of the plant kingdom.
And those tiny nettles are almost like the pneumatophores
that come off of the jellyfish's tentacles.
Ah!
Oh, I want to rub it or do something to it.
But I know if I do that
it's only gonna work the nettles in deeper.
(exhales) (inhales)
Now, it's important to note that this is the second
most painful st singing plant in Australia.
The number one top tier, the one that they call
the suicide plant, is called the gimpy gimpy.
Now, we once ranked the bullet ant
as the number one sting in the insect kingdom.
From there, it climbed up to the giant hornet
and the execution wasp.
So supposedly this sting from this plant is
like the comparison of the Japanese giant hornet.
Honestly, at this point, I'd say the pain is starting
to get into that realm of sticking my hand
into a box full of yellow jackets.
Now, I've been very public in saying that the hand
in the angry yellow jacket box is the
most painful experience I've ever gone through.
So far, this has not eclipsed that.
But if the pain continues to increase as it is now,
I'm in for a very painful next 24 hours.
Okay, so when you think about it,
I barely grazed that leaf over my forearm.
Imagine if you were to be hiking
on the side of one of these steep inclinments
and you slipped and you fell and you rolled down that hill
like Humpty Dumpty head over heels through these plants.
how bad that would be.
It feels as if somebody has taken a hot glue gun
and spread the glue on my forearm
and I can't actually get the glue off of my skin
and it's beginning to radiate,
and I can feel it coming in these surges of--
(imitates pulsating)
That's the pacing of the pain.
And scientists don't quite know why this neurotoxin reacts
to humans, to mammal DNA the way that it does.
All right, so what we're gonna do now is let this set in
for a bit longer, and then I'm gonna try one
of the remedies that I saw online, using hair wax strips
to remove some of those trichomes from the skin.
What I want to do is lay the wax starting
at the back onto to the nettle zone,
just like that.
Slowly. Ah. Oh, that does not feel good.
Massage that wax in.
Now a little bit of heat is
what's gonna help that wax adhere to the skin
and at the same time, hopefully those nettles.
I want to remove as many of those from my skin as possible.
Now, if you can get yourself
to wax strips faster than three hours and 30 minutes
that I let go by, it would be better.
Because remember, these are gonna constantly
be working themselves down and into the skin.
All right, I feel like that's on there pretty good.
You guys ready? Here we go.
Peel off the strip fast and quickly.
1, 2, 3.
Oh!
Ow! (groans)
God, that really hurt.
And I don't know if that made it any better.
Might have made it worse, to be honest with you.
I maybe can see some very fine little,
yeah I definitely can.
There's no way you're gonna see this on camera
but I 100% can see that it has removed some of the nettles.
And I'm wondering, from an angle
this is how I was able to see the nettles earlier.
From an angle don't see any nettles remaining,
but to play it safe I'm gonna use
my one other side to this wax strip.
All right, work that in there just like that.
(exhales)
Wax strip number two coming off.
1,
2,
3.
Oh.
Yowsers. (groans)
Well, hopefully I got all the rest of them that time.
Oh yeah, they're definitely pulling out. That is fantastic.
They just look like these little white fibers
and essentially, that's exactly what nettles are.
All right, well, if you happen to find yourself
in this worst case scenario where you stumble
upon a giant stinging tree and you get those nettles
in your arm, that is proof right there.
That wax strips will help remove those
that have not worked themselves down
beneath the surface of the skin.
And I know what everybody out there is thinking.
Coyote, are you going to put yourself
into the sting zone with the gimpy gimpy?
Yeah, we're definitely gonna film that.
I honestly don't feel like this was nearly
as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
I know you guys all wanna see what it's like
for Coyote to be stung by the world's most painful plant
and I think that episode is definitely necessary.
Okay, there it is. The gimpy gimpy leaf.
(groans) Ah!
Oh, the water definitely makes it worse.
This is terrible at the moment. Absolutely terrible.
(ominous synth music)
I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave. Stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
All right, I'm gonna get up
and shake my arm off a little bit.
This is very painful. (grunts)
(birds chirping)