On 11/4/2019 at 3:25 PM, PatOngo said:

Kratom, also still illegal! Hence the price!

Not the same plant.

There is a great phone app called "plant snap" will identify any flower or plant

The symptoms reminds me of poison ivy. I suffered a lot as a child/teenager not looking where I was walking. 

 

Here is a toxic garden:

 

It is the herbal plant called kratom in Thai. Touch it and you get rashes oozing pus? Villagers chew the leaves to get high!

It is known as Kratom. In Malaysia known as Ketum. Another stimulant green that make one high and almost invisible.

36 minutes ago, TTL2 said:

It is known as Kratom. In Malaysia known as Ketum. Another stimulant green that make one high and almost invisible.

The last word in your sentence intrigued me.

  It my solve my visa issues. and reduce my wardrobe expenses. Already thinking of business opportunities,. 

12 hours ago, Gee Ku said:

It is the herbal plant called kratom in Thai. Touch it and you get rashes oozing pus? Villagers chew the leaves to get high!

 

10 hours ago, TTL2 said:

It is known as Kratom. In Malaysia known as Ketum. Another stimulant green that make one high and almost invisible.

It is definitely not kratom. 

Chewing the leaves of this cutie [ Dendrocnide sinuata ], and you won't be able to tell anyone anymore.

 

If you google images of Kratom - it looks just like the leaves in the original OP photo ?

Yet there are photos of people handling the leaves like they are cabbages....

 

Here is a link to show the real Devil plant - which has very much larger longer and glossier leaves than those of the Kratom 

 

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/My-Husband-and-Other-Animals-mdash-Innocent-plant-deadly-sting/article14934130.ece

 

So is the young lad telling porkies to cover the fact he is growing an illegal plant or is there really a relative of the Gympie Gympie tree in his garden ??? ...

 

 

10 hours ago, lonewolf99 said:

If you google images of Kratom - it looks just like the leaves in the original OP photo ?

Yet there are photos of people handling the leaves like they are cabbages....

Here is a link to show the real Devil plant - which has very much larger longer and glossier leaves than those of the Kratom 

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/My-Husband-and-Other-Animals-mdash-Innocent-plant-deadly-sting/article14934130.ece

So is the young lad telling porkies to cover the fact he is growing an illegal plant or is there really a relative of the Gympie Gympie tree in his garden ??? ...

The height and the leaves of the Devil plant in the link you posted, are very very similar to the (caged) cutie in my garden.  I do not believe my girlfriend's son is telling me porkies, because 2 other thai natives that saw it, warned me to never touch it (will sting like being bitten by a scorpion, and within 10 minutes puss will start oozing out of the area where you touched it).

Also in the rural village where I live, many of the elder people are heavy kratom-chewers but none of them has touched it.

Seems I have indeed the Asian cousin of the Gympie gympie here...

Note: He will soon cut it, then dry the leaves and sell them (even dried they will sting) but can be used in herbal medicine.  Will earn him approx 1000 THB, and I have urged him not to grow new ones after having harvested the present one.