The Poison Ivy - Poison Oak Blog

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.

All of the nasty face rashes from poison ivy come from people touching their face after getting the plant oil on their hands. Rarely does anyone touch poison ivy directly with their face.

So poison ivy reminds us that we can bring invisible bad stuff from hands to face. 

This very mild winter in the northeast will likely result in an early spree of poison ivy sprouting. 

Poison ivy tends to be among the early ones to leaf out (and early to give up in fall).

I have rarely seen poison ivy climbing a white birch, but as this photo shows it is happy to do so.

But it also does a nice job of revealing itself against the white bark.

Some things to notice: