Information about poison ivy, oak, sumac and the skin rashes they cause
We are always surprised by how many visitors to our website are looking for information about poison sumac, not poison ivy and oak.
It turns out that poison sumac is extremely hard to find in most areas: I met a trained botanist with decades in New England who had never seen it!
Poison oak is found in much of California. It is very adaptable to the dry conditions and it leafs change in shape and size depending on how hot and sunny it is.
This is Pacific poison oak, the only one of the poison ivy-oak-sumac family to be found in California.
Expert poison ivy spotter, Karin Turer, sent in this monumental fence disaster. Not sure if the poison ivy knocked down the fence, but it has grown into a ming-boggling shrub on this suburban fence.
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.
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