Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

Poison ivy is an easy one. Especially if you've been hiking in California, you've passed it on the trails when there is tree cover.

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.

I'm 100% certain you are mixing up poison oak and poison ivy. People do this non stop here in the midwest, but in the reverse of what you're doing funny enough.

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.

I'm from the east coast where there is also plenty of poison ivy and found it funny how my brain reacted to this quiz. Every time a picture of poison ivy appeared, I didn't even think about it, I just had an immediate uneasy feeling. It's like I've trained some subconscious part of my brain to identify and push me away from poison ivy.

You are thinking of poison oak; California doesn't really have poison ivy

The key: Not waxy (like typical ivy), but oily wet shiny

Half the poison ivy pictures are taken from angles or with lighting that does not show the oily sheen so I keep making mistakes!

The other tell is 3 leaves. From memory (so maybe wrong), they aren't hairy, but do have a slightly broken edge (can be smooth, but can have a little but not a lot of variation).

_Leaves of three, leave them be If it's hairy, it's a berry If it's shiny, watch your hiney!_

is what I learned in Scouts

We live in the woods and there's poison ivy around. I try and mark the obvious stuff with some spraypaint, but if you go for a hike you could probably come across some.

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.

This video has always helped me since there are a lot of 3 leaved plants. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRGdrzfC2Q

What score did you get on the quiz?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com