(dramatic music)
- I'm Coyote Peterson and I'm about to enter
the nettle zone with the scratch bush. One. Two. Three. (Coyote screaming) (water splashing) (digital beeps) Nothing. (footsteps treading) (Coyote screams)
Geez! Ow. What the?
(dramatic music continues) (Coyote moans) Hold on a second. Wow! I don't know what it
is that I just walked into, but my hand is on fire right now. I just brushed up against this leaf. The stem is covered in spikes. Coyote to Mario. - Yep, go for Mario. - Hey, I think I found a stinging plant. Just stung myself in the hand. - Alright, we're on our way. - Could be what they call the evil woman, which is a stinging plant species in Central and South America. I don't know what this is. There's no other plants like it. I've been, all right,
you guys coming over? Yeah, I can't see my hand. Shine some light on my hand real quick. Yeah, my hand is like
on fire at the moment. (graphic whooshing) (vibrant music) As you know, I'm no stranger to pain, and that plant's gonna mess me up. But do you know what else is a pain? Losing a car key and having to go to a specialized dealership
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for sponsoring today's video. (graphic whooshing)
(pensive music) Okay, well every once in a while, the rainforest of Costa Rica
give you a blessing in disguise and I'm probably the only
person who would be excited of the fact that my hand just
brushed up against a plant. And I always come prepared
no matter where I am, (Velcro ripping)
and I actually have some Ziploc bags and a pair of gloves
so that we can actually get one of these leaves. Without knowing what it is, I'm gonna have to do a
little bit of research. So we're not gonna film the sting now, we're probably gonna
do this under daylight, but getting the sample
right now is probably smart. I cannot believe it. I literally just brushed up against this piece of the leaf right here, and as I was kind of looking
up underneath for frogs or caterpillars or any
other little insects, we are trying to do some
Caterpillar sting episodes. So I'm always looking on
the undersides of leaves and in the process found
a plant to get stung by. Let me get one of these leaves off here. Snip here. Oh, gotcha, look at that. Oh, yeah, that is definitely
a leaf that means business. Wow! It is covered in some
pretty robust trichomes which you're not gonna be
able to see on that camera, so we'll have to get out
the macros, but there it is. That's the sample. And now we gotta find out
what kind of plant it is before I actually take a full on nettling. (digital beeping) (graphic whooshing) And we're back.
(pensive music continues) After last night's chaos, we knew that an episode had to be filmed featuring this leaf. Now I've got some good
news and some bad news. The bad news is that this is not what they call the evil woman. It is a different stingy plant
known as urera baccifera, or more commonly known as the scratchbush. You're gonna find out why. So, don't be disappointed. This is a plant that is
going to pack a double punch. Now, similar to the devil's toilet paper and the gympie-gympie,
it is covered in spines and little nettles that
are known as trichomes. Now the second that those hit your skin, the tip breaks off and the
poison leaks into your skin. The poison specifically in
this plant is formic acid, strangely enough, which
is also found in a number of different ants species. And this plant, believe it or not, shares a mutualistic
relationship with trap-jaw ants. Now, we did see some leaves last night that looked like they
were cut full of holes, almost like a Swiss cheese leaf. That's because caterpillars love to feast on this plant species. The trap-draw ants then come
in and eat the caterpillars. You call that a mutualistic relationship. Good for the ants, good for the plants. But this is not like
the devil's toilet paper or the gympie-gympie in that
it's gonna grow in big masses, like a huge jumbling
together of these plants. It's actually more of a solo plant. And the way they grow in the rainforest is when the canopy opens up, like if a big tree falls over and light hits the basin of the floor, this plant will grow up in that sunlight. Believe it or not, they hate shade. (Coyote sighs) I think I've kind of put
this off long enough. So if you guys are ready,
it's time to rank this, the scratchbush, on the
plant sting pain index. How does it compare next to
the devil's toilet paper, the gypmie gypmie and the stinging nettle? I have a feeling based on last
night's brush with the leaf, it's gonna be pretty bad. Alright, here we go. Now, I did shave my arm, not only did I buzz the hair off, but I used a straight razor
and got a real clean canvas. So we're gonna see any of the nettles that are left in my skin. And, of course, those
welts after the fact. (Coyote sighs)
Okay, here we go. I'm Coyote Peterson and I'm about to enter the
nettle zone with the scratchbush. One, two, (Coyote sighs)
I'm sorry forearm, three.
(pensive music continues) (Coyote screams) Holy mackerel! Okay. (Coyote grimaces) Just gonna pat that around there. We're gonna get the full effect. Oh, wow! It's like really,
really hot sandpaper. (Coyote screams) Okay, let's see if that's gonna be enough. (Coyote screams) Ooh, hot diggity dog! That turns on real quick. (Coyote shrieks)
Wow! Okay. Definitely worse than
the devil's toilet paper. No question about that. And a big difference, oh, geez, big difference between this
and the stinging nettle, stinging nettle I would say almost feels like pop rocks going off in your mouth and it almost tingles
(Coyote groans) and itches a little bit. And I took a lot of 'em. Like, I went further than I
did with the gympie-gympie. Now the gympie-gympie is supposed to be the most painful
stingy plant on the planet. And after I went through that experience, the nerve damage lasted
for almost six months. I don't think this is
going to be nearly as bad based on what I read,
which is why I'm like, "Alright, let me get it a
bit more of a full effect." Oh, yeah, but you can
definitely see that the redness and the lumps are beginning to form. Wow! It's throbbing, just throbbing. So, devil's toilet
paper was instantaneous, but not the same amount of heat. This is more heat pain
(dramatic music) than it is sharp pain. I would say the devil's toilet paper and the gympie-gympie were
a little bit more electrical as compared to this,
this is just hot fire. - Boom, bam, bop. Batta bap boom, pow!
(crowd cheers) - Now, when those trichome tips break off and the nettles get into your skin, what you don't wanna do is scratch at it because all that's gonna do is drive those little nearly invisible hairs deeper and deeper into your body. (Coyote groans)
Like you feel like you wanna brush it off of you, but that is not gonna help the situation. (Coyote groans) I mean we are talking easily 50 nettles that ended up into my arm. And this is just part one, I
want you to keep that in mind. So, the burning sensation is
just the start of my journey. Within 24 hours,
(dramatic music) these are going to turn into pussing welts that are going to be itchy. Again, that name scratchbush, and the scientific name for this, I wonder if it's similar
to the urticating hairs that come off of the back of a tarantula. Now, those little hairs that flick off can get into the eyes, the mouth and the nose and cause irritation. So, the scientific name
for this plant may be, may come from that idea of urticating. Like, wow, holy, sorry,
lightheaded. (laughs) Lightheaded all of a sudden outta nowhere, kinda lost my train of thought. Oh, man, wow.
(dramatic music continues) Look at right here, like this whole line. So, when you look at the
underside of the leaf, the bigger spines that
run down the center, those larger trichomes are
like little dragon's teeth, razor sharp, like hypodermic needles. And the penetration into my
arm is effortless, right? Especially once any
hair that could provide any protection is shaved off. (Coyote moans) I could see how, like, if
you got this on your face or your neck or near your eyes, like, you would really
begin to panic quickly. (Coyote sighs) Alright, I'm gonna get up
for a second, walk around. Check my arm for a bit. Let's let this set in. We'll check back in in 10 minutes. (Coyote sighs)
(upbeat tribal music) Oh, okay. 10 minutes in, and like I mentioned earlier, the scratchbush is a one, two punch, and that first punch, bam!
(dramatic music) Walloped me like Mike Tyson to the forearm because it is still an incredible pain. However, I read that it's actually the 24-hour after effect
that can be worse. Now, it all depends how my
body reacts to the poison, but my arm may break
out in pussing blisters. So we're gonna continue to document and find out just how
bad the after effects of the scratchbush really are. (dramatic music continues) Well, it has been 24
hours since I was nettled by the scratchbush. And as you can see from my arm, the reaction 24 hours
later isn't that bad. I have two little
blisters that have formed, and to be honest, they don't itch at all. Now, my body's pretty
resilient to a lot of things, and to be honest, I don't
even really get poison ivy. So, it is possible that
my body did not react to the scratchbush the way
that it does with some people. However, it's certainly not a
plant that you wanna run into, when it comes to the level of pain that I experienced right
after the nettling, I'd put it probably just at about the level of the devil's toilet paper. Nowhere near the gympie-gympie, but it's definitely more
potent than the stinging nettle that we have in the United States. Now, is there a more
painful stinging plant here in Costa Rica? I have heard rumors of the evil woman, and if we can find that
on the Osa Peninsula, I have a feeling that it
may take the top marks for most painful stinging
plant here in the tropics. I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild. We'll see on the next adventure. (dramatic music continues) (graphic booming)
(coyote howls)
