Is This Poison Ivy?

[+the hermit crabs]

Can anyone tell if this is poison ivy? I was hiding a cache when this was pointed out to me near the site.

 

The "leaves of three" thing is never very helpful to me... if you look at the branch on the lower left, there are three leaves together at the end, but then right near them there are two others. Is that five? Or three and two? And does the "five" or "two" mean it can't be PI, or does the "three" mean that it could be, and I should ignore the other two?

 

Thanks.

 

[+voogadah]

Nope, you're safe.

[+Markwell]

This is poison ivy.

[+Kite and Hawkeye]

Generally each little twiglet will only have three leaves on it. If there are more below the trio on the end, it isn't likely to be poison ivy (or oak).

[+the hermit crabs]

Thanks to all. I have hit the "Submit" button

[Orcinus Orca]

The leaves also usually look "oily" .

[+Miragee]

Here is a picture of some poison oak. Isn't it pretty? And so inviting.

 

[Archaeologist-PA]

This is a great website for info and pics about poison ivy:

 

http://www.poison-ivy.org/

[Rivergoat]

I've also noticed that at least here on the West Coast the blackberry bushes can be mildly deceptive. They also have 3 leaves on a twig, but the leaves have pointed edges, and the stalks have tiny thorns on them. They are not hazardous.

 

Our beloved poison oak, OTOH, is the most vile plant I have ever encountered. I was caching yesterday along the coast near Half Moon Bay. It is everywhere. In the lusher forested areas I've seen the leaves get downright HUGE. Out on the hillsides near a cache at Pigeon Point Lighthouse the leaves are smaller, though very oily looking and many leaves also turning red. Pretty...yeah, pretty poison.

 

I got a case of it when trying to find one cache a while back. I was careful about where I placed my hands, but I think I even touched soil that had oils on it. When I wiped sweat from my forehead, I managed to get a rash there, too. Miserable stuff.

 

And on a fishing trip some years ago, I passed "dormant" stalks of it; no leaves at all. I still managed to get a rash from the stalks.

 

Be careful around this stuff, oak, ivy, or sumac. It's also an extremely hardy plant, there's a few growing where I live. Tear them out (carefully), they always come back next year.

 

I've made it a point now to avoid caches that are in or extremely near, poison oak.

[+Team Zappy 45]

Poison Ivy only spreads if you spread the oil. Its good practice to wash exposed areas of your body with the strongest soup you tolerate when you get home. Areas with strong exposurer develop the rash first. Areas with less exposure develop later, thus the spreading. I got a small touch on the wrist this year.

[+Hoppingcrow]

Its good practice to wash exposed areas of your body with the strongest soup you tolerate when you get home.

Thank you for my morning guffaw! Chicken rice might work, then?

[+Apple Dumpling Gangg]

Poison ivy also forms a "furry" looking vine that goes up the side of a tree. Contact with the vine can also cause the rash. AFter having poison ivy almost every summer as a kid, I no longer get it, but my poor kids do. I now carry a bottle Tecnu with us when we cache in case the kids are exposed. Tecnu is a soap desgined to break down the poison ivy oils.

[+SgtSue]

This is a great website for info and pics about poison ivy:

 

http://www.poison-ivy.org/

Love the slide show, the comments at the bottom are hilarious. Should have taken picture of my last outbreak.

[Rivergoat]

Poison Ivy only spreads if you spread the oil. Its good practice to wash exposed areas of your body with the strongest soup you tolerate when you get home. Areas with strong exposurer develop the rash first. Areas with less exposure develop later, thus the spreading. I got a small touch on the wrist this year.

I've tried using minestrone and the red clam chowder (white/Boston Clam Chowder doesn't help). They're OK, but only if you have crackers to go with it....

[+Team HHD1]

This sounds wierd I know, but I am actually immune to the stuff. All my life I have walked through it (ivy, oak, sumac) and have never had a break out... Not one itch. During a physical years ago I mentioned it to the Doc and he said that's not at all too uncommon... any other folks out there who don't itch in the woods?

 

Now my wife on the other hand is a different story... She can't even smell certain plants without breaking out all over the place!

 

Maybe our kids will be normal? lol...

[+the hermit crabs]

Yep, me too -- which is why I never notice it at all, which is why I had to post the question in the first place

 

My brother is also immune to it. Once he had a boat sitting in his driveway that he was selling, and a guy came by to look at it, and together they crawled underneath it to check it out. The next day, the guy called my brother, furious. "Why didn't you tell me we were crawling through a patch of poison ivy??" (Apparently he had a brutal case of it.) My brother, unaffected and bewildered, could only say that he had no idea it was even there.

[+webscouter.]

For those of you who are "Immune" to the stuff beware. Lots of people develop a reaction to it later in life and then become hypersensitive to it. They often have to go to the hospital because they have such a bad outbreak.

[+Kite and Hawkeye]

I used to be immune, or what I now call "not yet allergic," to poison oak. Used to be able to wade right through the creekside thickets like they weren't there. I'd wash off a little if I had time or thought of it, but I wasn't very careful and I never got a rash.

 

When I became allergic to the stuff, I became very allergic to it very suddenly. We did one cache in a fairly oak-infested area, and that was the end of it. I made my usual halfhearted attempt at avoidance, and I did wash when we got home... and then, a full week later, I developed a spectacular rash on practically my entire body. Legs, arms, sides, and a really nasty throat rash that made people act a bit like I had leprosy. I didn't stop itching for a month. I slathered myself in every product marketed toward unfortunate hikers, and got little relief from anything but Aveeno oatmeal cream. I respect the poison oak now.

 

And so I say unto you, even if you haven't had a poison oak/ivy rash before, it's a pretty good idea not to get too cocky about it!

[outrigger3]

long pants and shirts plus laytex gloves when unsure and a zip lock bag to put in

when done that works for us

[MagicMeeko]

Can I be a geek for a second? Thanks.

 

The term "leaf" is properly defined as the entire section that sprouts off from the plant. (The twig proper, not each leaf*)

 

*what you think of as a leaf is actually a leaflet.

 

"Leaflets Three....." Not Leafs three!!

[+Moony Padfoot and Prongs]

AAARHHHGG! I can NEVER tell! What is this stuff? Its every where around Lewisville TX.

 

 

Edited May 30, 2005 by Moony Padfoot and Prongs

[+Tidalflame]

I don't think either of those are.

 

But I wouldn't take my word for it.

[+Team Dromomania]

I've lived around poison ivy in the South and now poison oak in the West. I seldom get a case of the itch from it. I hike, work and geocache in the stuff. I do not wade through it unless I really need to get to the other side. However, I sometimes get a slight itch and rash around "soft" skin like the face or wrist or tummy. It will last about a week.

 

On the other hand, my wife gets it from looking at photos - not really - but almost. She can get it from handling my clothing after I've been through it. So I have to be careful to keep those clothes seperate for her sake. If she hikes or geocaches with me she'll take a very wide path around any PO.

[+Team Cotati]

I have and continue to be immune to the effects of poison oak, ivy, sumac. Must be genetic. My dad and brother had the same immunity. The wifey unit seems to be a magnet for the stuff and it just loves her. Me too. ;-) smooch

 

I hope that this helps you identify poison ivy.

[+TresOkies]

I don't think either of those are.

 

But I wouldn't take my word for it.

In the second photo, the stuff to the right side is definitely PI. The little "thumbs" on the leaves help identify it. I could be wrong, but it certainly looks like the stuff that I wade thru immediately prior to an outbreak.

 

I also get it from the leafless stalks. One of these days I will learn.

[+Muggermots]

Haven't had it yet, knock on wood. My ex was very reactive to it, so I am thinking I need to finally learn what the darn stuff looks like to hopefully keep from dragging the kids through it. I've always been one of those who doesn't pay any attention to it.

[+briansnat]

When I'm in doubt, I rub the leaf on my arms and wait a few days. If I break out, I know it was poison ivy.

[thesolakiads]

Heehee....minestroni...good one.

 

DON'T BURN the stuff either. Really bad for you.

 

If you do find those furry vines growing up a tree the best thing this person who catches it by existing in the same square mile cuts out a chunk of the vine and sprays both open ends with pioson ivy killer on it. the vine will die. Heh heh.

 

Uuuhhh....use rubber gloves and then throw them away when done.

[+AuntieWeasel]

I'm immune, but careful. I figure I'll use all my immunity up at some point and come down with one hellatious case of it.

 

My brother was one of those hyper-allergic types. Way back then, one treatment was to cover the area in gentian violet. Don't ask me why -- gentian violet is that vivid purple dye used to mark skin before surgery, so it never comes off. You just have to grow new pink skin under it. We used to call him Super Grape.

[+Marcie/Eric]

I've heard that if you're allergic to honey-bees, you are immune to Poison Oak.

[+Hoppingcrow]

I've heard that if you're allergic to honey-bees, you are immune to Poison Oak.

Here's Hoppingcrow to debunk that theory. I am violently allergic to both.

[+Tellulah]

Ahh...discussing the big PI. Was just avoiding some last night at a cache.

 

I itch just looking at pictures of it...had to get allergy shots for it as a kid. But, my Dad could pull it out and walk all through it and not get it. And YES, DON'T BURN IT! One time he decided to pull it all over our property and put it in a big pile and burn it...I was nowhere near the plants, but the smoke hit me and the next day I was absolutely covered in it. EEK.

 

Also, I rub my legs with alcohol after a walk, and that's a nice cheap way to get the oil off...will have to check into "Tecnu" though?

[+Marcie/Eric]

I've heard that if you're allergic to honey-bees, you are immune to Poison Oak.

Here's Hoppingcrow to debunk that theory. I am violently allergic to both.

I stand corrected.

[+Team Zappy 45]

Well I went to http://www.poison-ivy.org/ as suggested. I don't think some of the guys know poison ivy as well as they think. I know it has 3 leaves, the leaves are broader at the base, and it (or poison oak) is every where we geocache, but.....

 

They have pictures of PI that's red, green, orange, and yellow. PI with shiny and dull leaves, skinny and broad leaves. They show leaves that are smooth, with rounded thumbs, and notches. They have PI pictures as vines, creepers, and PI bushes. Look at the site and take the test.

 

The treatments are even more confusing. If you have a treatment there will be statements that agree and disagree with you.

[+Moony Padfoot and Prongs]

I just treat anything with three leaves like PI. Of course that may seem a little extreme, but I haven't had any PI affects as of yet. Although I have a pretty bad chigger infestation right now, which is just as bad!

 

My main rule of thumb is that if it has 3 leaves and a woody stem....I stay away. That and as soon as I get home, the clothes go into the wash, and we take showers.

[+fishfam]

Just want to caution those of you who "never get it". Your time may come. I went 29 years without any problems with Poisen Oak. Then a few years ago, I got my first case. Every time I've contracted it, I've not walked through it. It's oils from my kids or dog or who knows what. I'd still like to know how I got it on my butt. LOL

I also think I'm becoming allergic to bee's. The last few times I've been stung, I haven't felt well afterwards. I think I should add benadryl to my caching bad.

[+vree]

I'd still like to know how I got it on my butt. LOL

 

well, all you have to do is sit in a big bowl of minestrone to fix that right up.

[+briansnat]

I'm another one who was not allergic to the stuff for about the first 30 years of my life. I could bathe in it. Then I got one very nasty case while playing paintball.

 

My wife got a case of it in the middle of the winter even though we had not been outside.

We guessed that it must have come off a piece of gear that she touched.

 

I've also had surprise cases from touching shoes or gear that came in contact with PI months earlier

 

We canoed to a cache on Sunday, then we walked through a large patch of PI and got back in the canoe. When I got home I made sure I washed out the floor thoroughly, lest I get in the boat with bare feet in a month and find a little surprise on my feet a few days later.

Edited June 1, 2005 by briansnat

[thesolakiads]

Just an FYI to those who don't go near it. You can get it from your pets as well. Oil gets on their fur....you give them a hug....VOILA! Guess what you have in the near future?