Is this poison ivy?
birdandmoon.com
birdandmoon.com
On the plus side, during the peak of the suffering, warm showers are bizarrely euphoric, borderline orgasmic, as the water gently itches the skin. Anyone who's had a bad case of ivy know the feeling.
There are cheap fabrics who are better than bare skin even in scorching heat, plus you protect your skin from sunburns and some bad insects.
I seem to possess skill of losing not so used trails easily or doing some shortcuts which end up changing pleasant hikes into hardcore, often survival ones. I mean i have tons of experience and even returned few times (but only few, mind works against you here), but also thanx to that I see how ie 1 slip or loose rock at some crux place can be easily fatal, but most places are fine even if scary to beginners.
Or wading through thick bushes with ie this Ivy due to trails gradually disappearing and only later realizing they were from animals like op.
It seems so harmless at the time, right?
So, the leaf-identification exercise at that website is great, when in doubt look to the large stem/trunk of the plant. And if you see 1 large climbing poison ivy trunk, steer clear of all ivy-like brush in the same area.
https://mbgna.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Poison-iv...
I want a product that can show me where the oil is on my skin. I'm strongly affected by poison ivy. I sweat a lot, so I'm constantly touching my face. I've had bad rashes on my nose, eyebrows, and ears, amongst other places.
I use a soapy cloth every time I think I've been in contact and I still miss places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fels-Naptha
Even worse, it is almost impossible to find these days. The brand was acquired and the company that bought it is still ramping up production and distribution. Source: I emailed the company.
Actually just bought some Zote (also now owned by the same company), just yesterday, to test it out... but from what I hear, I don't think it is as good.
Discovering this site was a godsend for my son, who had severe eczema as a baby: https://www.solveeczema.org I would also get itchy skin hands after washing dishes, now, my skin feels great.
I've not tried using traditional soap for washing off poison ivy, though it does work for other kinds of grease, so I would expect it's ok as long as you scrub well enough with a cloth or something.
https://www.poison-ivy.org/seeleaf-detection-wipes
edit: PS: skip the dawn and use Gojo (the stuff from the autoparts store), or both.
He's right that scrubbing hard with a cloth is the most important part. For spot exposures mid-hike, a hard scrub with plain water in a stream or river, even without soap, has worked for me. A stone or a piece of bark can work as your scrubber. Better than your hand or your shirt. I swear that guy's saved me weeks of agony. Thanks for sharing.
extreme green power hand scrub is the same ingredients as zanfel, which is like $40 for a tiny tube. I keep tub of it in my shower and any time I see it starting, or think I may have come in contact I scrub the crap out of it, and it goes away in a few days. I haven't had a major breakout in well over a decade, and I reccommend it to everyone whenever the topic of poison ivy oak sumac or cashews comes up.
I have tons of it in my yard, and I'm genetically incapable of recognizing it by sight. I've gotten it 3 or 4 times in the past 10 years, and it's really annoying. I have some other type of vine, it's maybe kudzu but I'm not sure, that has completely enveloped trees, fences, climbing up my house. It's certainly intertwining with poison ivy and all the other plants and could very well pick up the oil from it.
There's an old movie called The Day of The Triffids, about walking/ambulatory plants, and you could shoot a remake of that in my yard and probably not need special effects. Kudzu can grow so fast you can almost see it in real time.
Three things work for me, in order of escalation:
1. Rubbing alcohol 2. Dawn dishwashing soap and scrubbing 3. Mean Green hand cleaner and more scrubbing
There was a scientist at UC Santa Cruz who patented a chemical that could be used to detect urushiol under a blacklight. I contacted them years ago to see if they were going to turn it into a commercial product, but AFAIK, it hasn't made it to market yet.
The idea is intriguing... a special light or cream to make urushiol visible on the skin to aid in scrubbing it off. Now that would be truly life changing!
Then on a day where I couldn’t possibly have gone near any ivy I ended up with a couple of spots on my fingers. And then again a week later before I realized it was probably on the boots. Fortunately just a minor inconvenience, but it’s crazy how the oil sticks around.
>This test probably helps you improve your false positive rate (accidentally identifying a safe plant as poison ivy)
do you mean I will a priori spot a bunch of false positives but then learn to eliminate them, improving my false positive rating but possibly exposing myself to more actual poison ivy?
or do you mean that my tendency to generate false positives will go up but I will be thus safer?
I'm writing because I imagine you mean the former, but what happened in my case is the latter. I consider myself very very good at avoiding poison ivy, but this test was showing me varieties that I've never encountered before (the ones with leaves that have a shape with some concavities)
If all the leaves are simple is not poison ivy. They need to be composed by several leaflets
Anything with five or more leaflets in the leaves is not poison ivy but could be poison oak or other poisonous relative. Some other Toxicodendron have 5, 7 or more leaflets.
Check for how "soft" and flat is the surface and how the light is absorbed
During university I spent a lot of time in the Carolina woods where poison ivy is abundant. At first you notice the disgusting oily leaves, hairy wood, green spring time berries and the leaves (of three let it be) that come in multiple colors with ample stems often with a dark reddish tint. The leaves come in varying shapes, older seems to be rounder, younger with wide serrations looking similar to red maple. I'm proud to have gotten to the next level, where it seems you just feel the evil presence. Not only intuitively by ecosystem context, but also by the shape of the growth as a whole. This allows you to identify it the winter and from impressively long distances.
Poison ivy is an enemy to the forest explorer, setting up blockades around water features and meadows. The oil can stay on surfaces for what seems like years. I truly hate this plant.
It's cruel irony that it doesn't bother wildlife, just humans.
The leaves look shiny because of the oil which in fact is the irritant part.
Edit1: @Myrmornis: score: 100% The key: Not waxy (like typical ivy), but oily wet shiny.
Edit2: @cortesoft: Yes poison ivy is common in California, just less common than poison oak. Both are abundant throughout northern California, especially in un-gardened and wilderness areas. Poison oak is super easy to identify because of the old "Leaves of 3, let them be" adage, combined with the distinct color and leaf shapes. Some of the common ones are a magnificently vibrant, almost "Hawaiian gecko -level" green like in this pic:
https://www.aces.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/hero-photo-s...
I'm pretty sure I'm actually immune to both of them, but not trying to press my luck. I'm also terrible at identifying plants but when they can hurt me or friends of mine suddenly it becomes easier to become familiar with their sight. If I can identify them, you can probably develop the skill even even more easily than I did after a few times.
Half the poison ivy pictures are taken from angles or with lighting that does not show the oily sheen so I keep making mistakes!
is what I learned in Scouts
I just tell people "leaves of three, leave it be" and leave it at that.
You can get into whether the branches alternate on the stem, the exact shape of the leaf, whether the middle leaf has a longer stem than the two side leaves, etc... But in my experience it's just way easier to have people avoiding the handful of plants in your area that are safe but could be confused (for us it's pretty much just boxelder) than trying to play botanist and determine exactly what's gonna ruin their entire month.
Unless you _really_ need to differentiate or you live in an area where there's a _lot_ of other three-leaved plants... just avoid the three-leaved plants.
Check this page out for a map of known ranges of each species: https://www.poison-ivy.org/poison-ivy-overview
Poison oak, Toxicodendron diversilobum, looks somewhat similar to eastern and western poison ivy (T. radicans and T. rydbergii), but are all different species. Neither poison ivy species really occurs in California.
The first indication I made a huge mistake was a relentless cough all that evening from the dust it generated as it broke off the tree. For the next month, I had horrible patches on my forearms and random other spots on my trunk where either it grazed me or I touched with my contaminated gloved hand. Luckily, I had some beta methadone lying around that helped the worst of the itching.
Even the dermatologist, when I saw him about 2 weeks post exposure, was horrified.
I lived in an area that had under-controlled poison ivy overgrowth, and it was always a challenge to convince people that poison ivy can look differently than what's expected once it's developed unimpeded for years.
> Poison ivy gives most people an itchy rash.
Good thing I'm not one of those people. (Yet. Repeated exposure can apparently eventually make me one of those people. But I've made it a half century so far despite living on the east coast, being semi-frequently exposed while hiking, running, yard-work, etc, and never really worried about it.)
Meanwhile, my wife is a plant geek: 53/55.
Did you know that just clicking no for all of them will get you a higher score than this?
This is a good reminder for people. Most people only start getting it after a few exposures. I know of at least one early exposure that should have been really bad that nothing came of, but I've had it a few times since. I'm pretty careful these days though: 54/55.
...Now I know I'm going to get wrecked this summer.
It would be great if they had an alternate view for the ones that people get wrong.
I got 50/55. I think one of my big problems was not being able to tell textures from the photo, or not getting a clear view of the stems and runners.
For folks who don’t already know:
- three leaves in a cluster is a good warning sign
- redness of the stem where the cluster meets is a telltale
- the leaves generally have a point at the end, and may develop points along their sides
- dry looking roots going vertical is a bad touch, just… don’t bother unless you’re escaping some other danger
- If you’re like some of my family and get it from the wind, none of these guidelines have any value, I’m sorry!
Oh wow, I'd have to move. I have the stuff growing up many of the trees I walk under frequently.
I do get very bad reactions if I touch it.
And these friends were from San Jose and went camping very close to Calaveras county haha.
I spent a few weekends in gloves, long sleeves, pants, mask, and googles with a hacksaw. The vine was three vines twined around the tree trunk, each vine about the width of my lower arm. I cut out chunks of the vine at the base of the trunk, and it was immensely satisfying watching the vine's leaves droop and wither. A bit unnerving when some extra windy days scattered the dying leaves across the yard.
Anyway, now (well, not literally right now as it's winter) I just take the occasional morning or afternoon and pare back any new growths and dig up more of the buried vine roots. Not sure what, if anything, I can do about the dead vine still wrapped around the tree, but at least the tree isn't competing with the vine for sunlight and air anymore.
In one local fireplace store they have a great selection of wood mantels from many varieties of hardwoods, all prefinished and ready to install. As I checked all of them available with the dimensions that would fit my particular needs, I found one oak mantel with a live edge front (bark still in place) and clinging to the bark all along the front of this mantel was a 2" thick (5 cm) poison ivy vine that had been cut to the same length. I told the owner what he had for sale but I don't know whether he ever removed that vine. The way it had all been finished looked like they treated it as an extra decorative element. I don't remember whether they were charging more for the mantel with the built-in irritant but it wouldn't surprise me to find that they were.
It seems to me that once you install that over a nice heat source it may start to liberate some of the oils and really cause an allergic reaction among anyone who buys that mantel without recognizing that vine.
For anyone trying to remove poison ivy from your property with the least amount of work, I have had luck covering it with 6" or more of straw hay and leaving that in place for at least one year. If you cut the vines and bushes to the ground and then cover the area leaving all the cuttings in place they will decompose. Just add some straw if any of it pokes through. It's a plant and so it needs light to grow. In a couple of growing seasons it will be gone.
Another thing that long sleeves help against is ticks and Lyme's disease.
I've been exposed enough times that I need high dose of steroids, both topical and oral to knock it down.
Last time it took 3 rounds of steroids and clobetasol. Before I used to get by with triamcinolone.
I want this quiz, but for poison oak. There's so much blackberry and other stuff in the bay area that looks awfully similar. I'd rather learn how to reliably identify it than be afraid of ... everything.
The buds and stem tips are especially good giveaways, but I didn't really realize it until I lived somewhere with multiple species of sumac.
https://www.verywellfit.com/poison-oak-photo-4020320
> The leaves may be notched, round, or oak-like depending on what other foliage is around the poison oak plants. They may be shiny—or not. They may have a red tinge—or not. This is where the challenge of identifying these plants comes into play. ... > The actual shape of poison oak's leaves change based on the environment it is growing in, with the lobes able to vary on the same plant.
That may be why I've found it hard to pin down.
We grow poison ivy as a cash crop, around here. You learn to recognize it.
It is everywhere. I once did a photo essay of a local abandoned insane asylum. Some of the buildings are covered with poison ivy, like English ivy (often, both).
Looks pretty in the fall, though.
ProTip: Don't burn it.
What happens when you do? Toxic?
I know a couple of landscapers that ended up in the hospital, because a few strands of poison ivy ended up in some brush they were burning (which they shouldn't have been, anyway).
Also if you buy firewood, give it a once-over before tossing it into your firepit, fireplace, or campfire.
I know someone who had an older relative who did this back in the 1950s — they did a bunch of yard work, and figured they’d burn the waste. It turned out that this was a popular laundry day in the neighborhood when most houses had things drying on the line. After the third or fourth neighbor mentioned the mysterious rash, they realized what they’d done but wisely kept the secret for years.
Use shears and/or high concentrate vinegar. And if you are sensitive, find a friend that isn't.
1) Irregular leaf shape. The leaves just don't know how to grow. Straight edge? Jagged edge? Both, neither?
2) The three leaves form a T-shape, with the center leaf jutting out.
Kudzu has its own issues, but it isn't a blistering agent.
https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-s...
Worst advice from Boy Scouts ever.... But it stuck with me and helps me identify poison ivy.
https://smile.amazon.com/Tecnu-Extreme-Removes-Poisonous-Itc...
https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/ivarest-poison-ivy-itch-re...
Luckily, my ignorance on this topic can be partly relieved for $7.
People often ask me how to identify poison ivy. And I try to teach them. I think I do a decent job. It’s not as simple as one or two markers. But at some point you just develop an instinct
Poison ivy has a few distinct characteristics that make it hard to miss if you know what to look for.
I get asked to teach people plant ID sometimes, and people often seem mystified by it, until I explain the concept of "search image". It seems to give them a new way to approach it and seems helpful in most cases. Probably related to what you mean by "developing an instinct".
Those stinkhorns tho :o
I know folks who always find arrowheads and fossils on hikes. Same skill, different patterns. This is a black box to me, I never see those things.
CONUS eastern half of US: poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) <- C15
Northern or Western poison ivy (Toxicodendron rydbergii)
Western poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) <- C17
Eastern poison oak (Toxicodendron pubescens)
---
Other uroshiol-related flora:
Cashew nut tree (the cashew apple)
Florida holly
Ginkgo tree
Indian marking nut tree
Japanese lacquer tree
---
"Toxicodendron Toxicity" 2022
This would have been really useful.
As I had grown up in england, I hadn't really twigged how much of a pain in the dick poison ivy is, how slow it is to react, and how it gets worse with repeated exposure.
By the end of the 6 months, I had a good idea what it looked like, and where its likley to live. But it wasn't second nature like avoiding brambles and nettles.
If you are allergic to Poison ivy you probably want to avoid cashews nuts (watch for them in cocktail mixes). The nuts can trigger an allergy in sensitive people if eaten. Poison ivy is a relative of the cashew.
I've had rashes from euphorbia sap and dried giant hogsweed, I used it as a stick, that was a mistake.
My favourite encounter was when hiking around in England. Saw a beautiful little lake, walked to it and realised way too late it was surrounded by Poison Ivy.
Then again, it was nothing compared to my encounter with Gympie Gympie[0] near Dorrigo.
Ok, it was probably English Ivy. But possibly Stinging Nettle or Lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum).
Not everyone reacts to it, but when they do, it's pretty bad. The others I ate with have no reaction to it at all.
I have had it a couple times, with leaves brushing my skin. Huge, weeping sores all over my arms, chest, stomach (and worse), like leprosy (I imagine, anyways, never seen a photo of a leper). I can't even imagine eating it.
Similarly, I saw an episode of "Flavorful Origins" on Netflix, "Lacquer Seed Oil", which collected the fruits of the Lacquer tree (basically a poison ivy tree). They ground up the fruits and cooked the pressed oil to neutralize the urushiol (how did they not die from inhaling it??), and then they made a lovely tea with the oil with local bee larvae.
The best thing to come of it is a story of having "poison ivy chicken."
I don't understand this. How does tromping through the woods and seeing many ivy-looking plants teach you anything, unless you have a way to know definitely which are poison ivy and which are not?
The sapling form is not quite the same as the vine form, which is not quite the same as the very thick hairy vine that it eventually transforms into. But once you know one, you can start to recognize the others due to at least some parts of the plant matching what you already know. And then the other parts of the plant, which you hadn’t previously recognized as being how poison ivy can look, are added to your personal visual memory, too.
I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It’s like if you saw a chihuahua and a Great Dane, you might not recognize them as being the same species. But if you see enough dogs in between, eventually you’ll see that they have something in common.
If it's showing as a vine you just have to categorize the attributes of the other vines. Where I'm from there are only 3 or 4 common vines. Grape, Virginia Creeper and Poison ivy. Also there are non-natives: kudzu and english ivy, but they exist in more specific contexts.
Your brain learns to categorize the attributes of these vines into different buckets and it sticks with you. Grape for example just kinda hangs around in the air with thick woody rope-like vines. Virginia creeper looks pretty similar to poison ivy, but really desperately hangs on to the trunk of trees. Poison ivy hangs on to the tree too buy tries to branch dramatically towards light often with parabolic woody branches. Mature Virginia creeper is hairy like poison ivy but the hairs are lighter, thicker and shorter than poison ivy. Your brain categorizes all these differences even if it doesn't know the name.
Our backyard is teaming with several of these plants.
More generally speaking, plant identification is something I'm terrible at and really want to get better at.
Scores: 50/55, then 53/55, then 55/55. Better to over-ID than under-ID (ask me how I know).
Well worth studying - and its habitat is spreading over time.
Climate change is not only expanding its habitat, but apparently increasing its urushiol content as it grows.
My mom had a brush with hogweed that gave her surprisingly bad sunburns many years ago. I keep away from most of the angelicas to avoid a similar reaction.
I recently learned about this tree in Florida where all parts of the tree can cause contact dermatitis, though not with urushiol. Even standing below it in the rain can cause rashes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchineel
Hogweed's super scary also. It's all over North America apparently. It contains furanocoumarin, a phytotoxin, and touching the plant sensitizes skin to sunlight. It can cause severe burns, necrosis requiring amputation, and permanent blindness.
A fact I just learned from looking it up: Species similar to giant hogweed, Heracleum mantegazzianum, are ALSO phototoxic. Did not know that! I thought if you could ID it as cow-parsnip or whatever, it was "safe." NOT. These include - Common hogweed, H. sphondylium -- Cow parsnip, H. maximum -- Wild parsnip, Pastinaca sativa -- Wild lettuces, Lactuca sp. -- Angelica, Angelica atropurpurea -- Queen Anne's lace, Daucus carota.
Other hogweed lookalikes in Apiaceae include the hemlocks, similar appearance but feathery leaves, which go WAY beyond phytotoxicity (all parts of the plant are fatally poisonous to humans).
Fun times. Steer clear! The cool thing about botany is, there's always something more to learn.
I removed a ton of Queen Anne’s lace from the yard when I moved in.
Now Texas bull nettle (Cnidoscolus texanus), while not extremely dangerous is instantly painful and quickly teaches you to give it a wide berth.
(Old Boy Scout saying)