Information about poison ivy, oak, sumac and the skin rashes they cause
This is a very common scene in the eastern half of the United States: roadside trees with poison ivy vines climbing up.
Poison ivy grows as a ground vine which will often start climbing up walls and trees, looking for more light.
Here is a cute little rabbit sitting among a bunch of poison ivy plants.
Of course, rabbits don't get a rash from poison ivy, and most reports suggest that NO animal other than humans, does get the rash.
The question is: which of these three leaves IS poison ivy?
They are totally different colors, sizes, shapes, and textures.
Not a hard one, of course: they are all three poison ivy, just at different growth stages.
Here is yet another example of the difference between 5-leaved Virginia creeper and 3-leaved poison ivy.
I keep posting versions of this for two reasons:
1. Virginia creeper is still among the most common plants to be confused with poison ivy
Word filtered down to us that Jason Isbell has a line in a song on his newest album, Reunions, that mentions poison ivy and oak.
Naturally, being total poison ivy and poison oak nerds, we wanted to hear it.
The songs is Dreamsicle, and the verse includes:
It never fails to amaze me how different poison ivy can look from one plant to another, one place to another.
Here is another great example of the relelenless climbing ability that poison can muster.
This is a location in the Philadelphia area, just this last few weeks in late April.
Here is the story in the victim's own words:
We know that poison ivy has many different looks: shiny, not shiny, notched, not notched.
But this photo, sent in from a fellow in Texas, made me look not twice, but about 5 times.
This is particularly clear example of the hairy climbing vine that poison ivy often becomes.
The reddish hairs show nicely against the dark bark. And you can see both thick vine and thinner vines, plus one hanging off the right side that has no hairs at all.
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