[7][8][9][10] The type specimen for this species was collected in 1819 by Allan Cunningham near the Endeavour River,[3] and was first described in 1857 by Hugh Algernon Weddell as Laportea moroides in his work Monographie de la Famille des Urticées, published in the journal Archives du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle.

The species epithet moroides is created from the genus name for mulberries Morus, combined with the Greek suffix -oides, meaning "resembling", referring to the mulberry-like infructescence.

[3][5] A variety of insects feed on the leaves, among them the nocturnal beetle Prasyptera mastersi and the moth Prorodes mimica, as well as the herbivorous red-legged pademelon, which is unique among mammals in being apparently immune to the plant's neurotoxins.

[15][16][17][21] Very fine, brittle hairs called trichomes are loaded with toxins and cover the entire plant; even the slightest touch will embed them in the skin.

[17][20][24][26] The trichomes stay in the skin for up to a year, and release the toxin cocktail into the body during triggering events such as touching the affected area, contact with water, or temperature changes.

[9][17][23] Ernie Rider, a conservation officer with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service,[16] was slapped in the face and torso with the foliage in 1963, and said: For two or three days the pain was almost unbearable; I couldn't work or sleep...

[16][17] W. V. MacFarlane, who was a Professorial Fellow in Physiology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, observed the effects of inhaling the trichomes, and he reported: The plucking of hairs from the leaves invariably produces sneezing in the operator within 10 or 15 minutes.

[20][25][27] It is known that the active constituents are very stable, since dead leaves found on the forest floor and even decades-old laboratory specimens can still inflict the sting.

[17][20][26] Early studies suggested that a variety of compounds, such as histamine, acetylcholine, 5-hydroxytryptamine and formic acid, could be responsible; however none of these has been proven to produce a similar intensity or duration of pain to those exhibited by the sting from the plant.

Moreover, their complex structure – resembling the inhibitor cystine knot – made them highly stable, explaining how the sting lasts for such a long time.

[29][30] The Kuku Yalanji people of Mossman Gorge used a method that was essentially similar, making a juice from the fruits or roots of the plant and applying it to the affected area, before scraping it off with a mussel shell once it had become sticky.

They include bathing the affected area in hot water, applying papaya ointment, xylocaine or lignocaine cream, and even swabbing with dilute hydrochloric acid.

Anecdotes of encounters with gympie-gympie are numerous, and range in accuracy, such as one which involves using the leaves as toilet paper (the user would have been stung when they first picked up the leaf, and unlikely to have proceeded to use it in the intended manner).