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Dendrocnide excelsa
A large rainforest tree from eastern Australia, sometimes over 40 m tall, best known for its long-lasting painful sting from hairs on its leaves. It is a tree for forest or large garden settings, not a houseplant, and should be handled with great caution.
Dendrocnide excelsa, commonly known as the giant stinging tree or fibrewood, is a rainforest tree in the nettle family Urticaceae, which is endemic to eastern Australia. It occurs from Tathra, New South Wales to Imbil in southeastern Queensland, and is very common at Dorrigo National Park and other rainforest walks in eastern Australia. The habitat of the giant stinging tree is subtropical, warm temperate or littoral rainforest, particularly in disturbed areas, previously flattened by storms or cyclones. It is well known for its extremely painful, long-lasting sting.
Indigenous Australians used the fibres to make nets and lines.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Dendrocnide excelsa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
