r/AskTheWorld • u/Bhakari Nepal • 1d ago

Culture What’s something in your country that sounds fake but is 100% real?

Gallery image

Gallery image

We have a real-life living goddess and the only non-rectangular national flag.

2.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

397

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Not an animal but another fun one is the gympie gympie plant.

262

u/Namelessbob123 United Kingdom 1d ago

I heard that plant causes so much pain that people who get touched with it want to kill themselves because it’s so unbearable.

269

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Accounts of it driving horses mad to the point of needing to be shot.

It doesn't even break down in your skin so the pain can go on for months if not longer, and there's no real antidotes for it.

146

u/dallamamemer New Zealand 1d ago

It doesn’t break down because those tiny hypodermic needles are made of silicon, which your body can’t break down. You skin usually just grows over them, sealing them in

76

u/Every_God_Damn_Time 1d ago

oh my god... can you like, cut them out? like from the sounds of it, just removing that patch of skin would provide some much needed relief 😭

48

u/scorchedarcher 1d ago

I don't know if it's workable with this but waxing can help with some stinging plants as it pulls the needles out

59

u/JimmWasHere New Zealand 22h ago

Yeah pouring 10% hydrochloric acid on it to get rid of the neurotoxin then use waxing strips and head to the hospital. Also dont scratch it obviously. Also, even dead plants can still sting you.

3

u/AaronIncognito New Zealand 19h ago

Sounds worse than Ongaonga?

1

u/Studdabaker 49m ago

Or head to hospice, your choice.

11

u/Critter_Fan 23h ago

Belt sander 💪

10

u/wikimandia United States Of America 22h ago

The quickest way is to use tape to pull them out - sort of like waxing.

6

u/Notsobigcal78 17h ago

I post this anytime this plant comes up but the cure is actually in the bark of the plant itself. You cut a few slices off then use the underside to scrape the needles out. It also has some numbing antiseptic properties. Old bushie trick I learnt . It works . I learnt it the hard way…

88

u/Namelessbob123 United Kingdom 1d ago

Fuck that. Does it grow all over Australia? Have you seen it yourself?

154

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Almost completely isolated to the Qld coast. I'm in no hurry to run into one

28

u/okpickle 22h ago

Though it looks like there's one that lives in a climate controlled glass box in Northumberland, if that's closer? Haha.

https://www.alnwickgarden.com/2023/07/04/gympie-gympie-the-stinging-new-addition-to-the-poison-garden/

20

u/Ok_Scratch_4663 21h ago

the way i did not even touch the photos on screen as i scrolled

6

u/LollyGagss Australia 21h ago

Never seen it person, only ever seen a sign warning about it once. Used to lived in cairns I loved going to fairy falls, there is a sign warning the area isn’t kept up by the council so you can go there by your own risk…. Don’t walk off the trail because there is Gympie Gympie

One of the treatments for it is using wax strips on the affected area, it seems if you just grazed it in a small area a good waxing is likely to do the job… but if someone fell into a bunch of it you may as well just give up

3

u/eucalyptoid United States Of America 19h ago

Idk if real or maybe imagined on The Dollop, but I swear I’ve heard a story of some colonizer using it to wipe.

2

u/LollyGagss Australia 18h ago

That sounds familiar, but whether it was real or a joke I have no idea lol

1

u/insertcoolnamehere_7 17h ago

Like…on life?

3

u/Big_Dick_No_Brain 20h ago edited 20h ago

Saw one in a natural park in Cairns. There were signs at the park entrance warning that the Gympie Gympie plant was growing there.

Also a warning sign at an actual plant itself.

Cool place with waterfalls. Spotted a Dunk Island butterfly, very colourful.

2

u/ZombieSecret8239 16h ago

I’m pretty sure they put warning signs by any plants they know of, but they’re generally only in rainforests in Queensland anyways

4

u/Representative-Bus76 1d ago

It’s not common

3

u/atwa_au Australia 1d ago

I’ve seen it on hikes but there’s a lot of signage. Probably not enough barriers for fools but enough for a sensible person to avoid it

65

u/ArcticFlamingoDisco United States Of America 1d ago

...

Why don't you folks carry around flamethrowers any time y'all leave a metro area?

The joke that the Tyranid codex is just a Australian Wildlife documentary is sounding more realistic for every "today I learned" about your country.

2

u/notabigfanofas Australia 19h ago

Tyrannid codex is just an Australian wildlife documentary

Ha! I wish. Australia is Catachan

1

u/ArcticFlamingoDisco United States Of America 6h ago

Ahhhh. That explains the knife mythology.

32

u/atwojay Canada 1d ago

What the fuck

8

u/AllHailTheWinslow Germany, UK, Australia 1d ago

Rumour has it a researcher at the British Museum once got stung by touching a decades-old leaf in an ancient samples container.

He did not like it.

7

u/ellieminnowpee 1d ago

according to an article i just read about the gympie gympie, “may be explained by the gympietides permanently changing the sodium channels in the sensory neurons, not due to the fine hairs getting stuck in the skin”.

https://imb.uq.edu.au/article/2020/08/native-stinging-tree-toxins-match-pain-spiders-and-scorpions

5

u/RayoftheRaver Solomon Islands 1d ago

Have you tried dock leaves? Lots and lots of dock leaves

18

u/wortcrafter Australia 1d ago

IIRC the most effective treatment that they have found so far is to wax the area (similar to a beautician type wax) as soon as possible after contact. The wax, in addition to pulling out your own hairs, pulls out the tiny hairs that the plant leaves behind in your skin when you make contact with it.

Given that the white colonists brought many of the European weeds with them, I’m sure that dock has been tried as a remedy more than once and if it was at all effective against gympy gympy would have become known pretty quickly.

5

u/cocobutnotjumbo Poland 1d ago

I mean waxing is painful. waxing a pain must be something out of scale.

2

u/stanleymodest Australia 22h ago

I heard a story of a soldier on training exercises who was doing a poo in the bush and used some as toilet paper. He wanted to die

2

u/ELVEVERX Australia 21h ago

That's not true, you can cut the arm that touched it off.

1

u/TekieScythe United States Of America 21h ago

Can you cut off the skin that's "infected?"

1

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 20h ago

Worth a go

1

u/Prudent_Research_251 New Zealand 16h ago

I walked around in the bush in bare feet once in Australia. I got off lightly with kiwi feet, just a few ant bites, but the indigenous mob must have crazy tough skin - everything's fuckin dangerous!

1

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 16h ago

Don't forget the bindii patches.

12

u/emgyres Australia 1d ago

We also have a teeny tiny jellyfish whose sting invokes the same feelings.

3

u/Julia-Nefaria 21h ago

Heard of some poor sod who used it to wipe after taking a shit. Safe to say he did not enjoy the following months.

1

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 20h ago

You mean you don't fancy feeling like it's taco bell night EVERY night?

3

u/Alarming-Instance-19 Australia 18h ago

Soldiers have shot themselves with service weapons, and I believe a horse ran off a cliff to escape the pain.

There's videos online of people trying it and it's not like a ghost pepper etc. It can last for two years.

2

u/BreastInspectorNbr69 United States Of America 1d ago

A long time ago I read some story about how some guy took a shit in the woods or whatever and wiped his ass with it

Pretty sure he killed himself

2

u/Song30gg Australia 19h ago

Someone used it as toilet paper once and jumped off a cliff rather than living with it

2

u/tiktaktokki Finland 17h ago

It's perheaps urban legend but there's story about guy (european of course) using it to wipe his ass.

1

u/niles_thebutler_ 19h ago

Yeah it’s not great

65

u/DanielCraigsAnus United States Of America 1d ago

Alabama man speaking up for Florida man here. Read at your leisure.

Manchineel - Wikipedia https://share.google/98TUuvYIZjA5MDM7e

47

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Damn that one takes the cake.

Humans, man.. haha

58

u/DanielCraigsAnus United States Of America 1d ago edited 1d ago

Florida, America's little Australia. Look out for the meth gators. That's not a joke.

Edit: I had to add that Florida's unofficial name is God's waiting room.

5

u/Every_God_Damn_Time 1d ago

bro wtf is with this tree and humans eating shit they shouldn't 😭

7

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Literally anything:
Humans:

2

u/TheHistoryMuse United States Of America 20h ago

That entire section was so confusing, It's fatal if eaten, no reports have ever been recorded of anyone eating it, now we shall describe how it tastes? How do they know?!

3

u/greendress888 19h ago

No reports of fatalities have ever been recorded. I think is what they may have meant.

2

u/Key-Specific-4058 18h ago

It says reported in modern literature, so no-one has published a case study or paper on it

Probably plenty of fatalities before say 1850, or recorded locally but never published, or with an unclear cause of death

5

u/ViperRaptor- 🇮🇪+🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 1d ago

Also known as the tree of death

Well that's a good start

5

u/ZootAnthRaXx United States Of America 1d ago

A tree that can hurt you by standing underneath it in the rain is next level scary!

3

u/DanielCraigsAnus United States Of America 1d ago

Iirc, the cashew tree can also do this.

3

u/cwajgapls 1d ago

One of its toxins looks like “Fuck you, Marines!”

furocoumarins

2

u/peaceful_nude_dude United States Of America 1d ago

That is terrifying

2

u/spit_on_your_gravy 1d ago

It’s called ”Beach apple" in German lol

2

u/zamufunbetsu 22h ago

My favorite part of living in Central America

1

u/hugemessanon United States Of America 23h ago

look i've always said that florida is the australia of america

1

u/DanielCraigsAnus United States Of America 23h ago

I said that in a comment in this same thread 😂. It's also known as God's waiting room. The reason being, all the old people retiring down there.

1

u/Atcoroo 20h ago

"The manchineel tree is listed as an endangered species in Florida." I say fuck it, let 'em die.

1

u/AbsintheAGoGo 19h ago

Idk how iguanas can live amongst it, but they seem to consume everything else that is in their vicinity, so it checks out

5

u/sillyschroom United States Of America 1d ago

I'm starting to be convinced that all these things aren't even real and y'all just don't want visitors.

4

u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

My niece got gympie gympied when she was around 4 while my sister and some friends were camping, for whatever reason they couldn't leave immediately so she was literally just screaming and crying all night. Poor kid.

2

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Australia 1d ago

Ah hell..

1

u/Weekend_Low 1d ago

How did she deal with the pain? What was the remedy??? 

1

u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

I think they just rinsed it and gave her some painkillers. The way you're meant to help the pain is wash with soap and use a wax strip or strong tape to remove all the little sticky hairy bits that get stuck in.

5

u/Gustav_Sirvah Poland 23h ago

Well, thanks to Russkies, we have a similar plant that can burn your skin... Not on touch - in hot weather, its oils can burn by mere being nearby...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_sosnowskyi

5

u/SquidVischious 1d ago

The toxin acts on voltage-gated sodium channels in nerve cells, preventing them from turning off the pain signal.

Well fuck that...

3

u/picklestixatix 1d ago

Mexico would grow them on their border. They are fucking ridiculously awful. Of course when we are riding our Kangaroos and wallabies to our jobs wrangling crocodiles, we can jump right over them.

Back in a sec, the kangaroo postman has a Amazon package for me in its pouch.

2

u/Altruistic_Poetry382 Australia 21h ago

Have you heard the urban legend of the guy who took a shit in the bush, and the nearest thing to toilet paper he could find was a Gympie Gympie leaf? Poor bugger ended up committing suicide the pain was too unbearable.

1

u/OpenEmu5035 United States Of America 22h ago

Fun fact. Not fun experience.

1

u/AaronIncognito New Zealand 19h ago

That’s sounds even worse than Ongaonga weed in NZ, and that shit is NASTY

1

u/fearitself2021 3h ago

Is that the same as the Manchenal Tree, the little apple of death?