Poison Ivy (Images and Description)

If you are not sure what poison ivy looks like, take a look in my poison ivy set from time to time and remind your teacher friends to do the same.

Remember that in the Fall, when the leaves are beginning to turn colours, They can be just about any colour other than green!

A common caution along trails in the Ottawa River Valley. The French term used in Quebec for Poison Ivy is Herbe à Puce and bilingual signs can be useful but in many areas of North America unilingual signs are more likely to be encountered.

Prior to a trip to Louisiana, I had never encountered poison ivy as a well established climbing vine, but I am pretty certain that this plant photographed in the Barataria Preserve near New Orleans, Louisiana is poison ivy or its close cousin so I’m adding it here. I wasn’t going to bring samples home!!!

The following two colorful images were of Poison Ivy climbing a fence by a parking lot in Connecticut. (Essex, Connecticut)

There are some plants in the forest that can look like Poison Ivy at various stages of their growth and development. One of these is Virginia Creeper, but its normal leaf pattern is quite different as can be readily seen in this photo of the Virginia Creeper taken in the Fall.

Other three-leaved plants, seen in the early Spring that might be confused with Poison Ivy and often occupy a similar ecosystem niche, are the various Trillium species. The trillium flower starts out as a beautiful white flower and turns to pink as it ages. Note, however, that, in the following picture, taken by the Hearts Desire Weir on the lower Jock River in Ottawa, the shiny green leaves at the base of the trillium belong to the dreaded three leaved plant: Poison Ivy. While the flowers of the Trillium species are large and showy and might lure you off of the trail to admire them more closely, the flower of the Poison Ivy plant is much smaller and basically nondescript.

Cropped from the above Trillium posting. Since I am rather allergic to poison ivy, one of my fears in the Springtime is that I, or the feet of my tripod, will end up in an emerging patch of poison ivy before the leaves unfurl and show off their shiny green. Happens about once a year, despite my awareness !!!

Another three-leaved plant that soon shows that it isn’t Poison Ivy is the Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Once its unusual flower/sepal construction shows up, there is no doubt that it is not Poison Ivy.

After a long Winter, anything that looks green, looks great. Enjoy its colour but don’t forget that picking it, walking in it or playing with pets that have been romping through it can lead to days of skin irritation and misery.

The irritation and itching sensations associated with Poison Ivy take a while to develop. For me, that normally means symptoms show up about 24-48 hours after contact.

When someone tells me that they went through some plants along a trail and immediately were faced with a prickly, stinging sensation, the commonest suspect would be a different plant called Stinging Nettle. The effect of an encounter with Stinging Nettle is usually much more instant, and much more noticeable but the effects of Stinging Nettle usually disappear within the first few hours after the encounter.

Stinging Nettle as I know it.

I think that this is a variety  of Stinging Nettle in flower along Offa’s Dyke Path in Wales.

I haven’t included any recommended remedies or treatments for persons unlucky enough to be allergic to poison ivy can only recommend that if you, your clothing or your equipment comes in contact with Poison Ivy, bar soap works well for removing the oils and their are plenty of over-the-counter type of treatment products. Ask your local pharmacist what they have or would recommend. When I was a youngster,Calamine Lotion was all that was available but now there are usually plenty of choices of similar products.

Happy trails but beware of Poison Ivy (and Poison Oak and Poison Sumac and ….)

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