Weekend Birding: Leaves of Three, Let it be!

Walking the nature trails is usually pleasant and uneventful. When I stay on the established routes and don’t venture off onto little paths in the woods or prairie (or worse, bushwack my own path), I’m fairly safe from biting bugs, itchy plants and poison ivy. Or so I thought. A few weeks ago I almost walked right into the largest poison ivy vine I’ve ever seen – and it was hanging over a wide, wood-chipped path on a nature trail on a well-traveled route.

Poison Ivy Vine

The plant had grown about 20 feet up on the trunk of a tree and the vine was about 2 inches thick. It looked like a branch from the tree and was hanging about four feet over the trail. The trail is visible in the bottom right corner of the photo. (click for larger view)

Poison ivy can be difficult to identify. It looks similar to other plants and it blends into the landscape. The leaves can be shiny or dull, toothed or wavy, and it can look like a shrub, a vine or a clump on the ground. So, how did I know this was poison ivy?

Close-up of Poison Ivy

I’m not always positive a plant is poison ivy, but I’m always alert for its presence. If it displays any of the following, I avoid it. The plant above had all the warnings.

Identifying Poison Ivy

• Poison ivy always has three leaves per leaflet. The leaflets are arranged in an alternate pattern. Two leaves are opposite and close together and the third leaf is on a longer stalk. Always.
• Usually there is a notch in the leaves. They are not serrated, but can be toothed, wavy or smooth.
• If the vine is growing up a tree, it will have air roots that will give it a hairy appearance.
• The presence of tight clumps of white or green berries.

There are perfectly safe plants that have three leaves such as raspberry vines, but the raspberry plant has thorns and poison ivy doesn’t. Box Elder seedlings look a lot like poison ivy, so much so that I’m never sure of those and always avoid them. Boston Ivy is another plant that looks similar.

“Leaves of three, let it be” is good to remember. I have never gotten a rash from poison ivy, but I tend to err on the side of caution.

Brilliant Autumn Color

The plant puts on a beautiful display of color in the fall. If it wasn’t so horribly irritating to most people’s skin it would make a lovely addition to the garden.

Only humans are sensitive to poison ivy

Poison Ivy is a native North American plant. Birds and insects are attracted to the berries and flowers as a food source. Woodpeckers and Yellow-rumped Warblers (and probably robins and other fruit-eating species) eat the berries for winter nourishment. They are not sensitive to urushiol, the chemical that causes the itching in our skin.

Can you identify poison ivy?

See if you can identify the poison ivy in these photos: Is this poison ivy? I got 50 out of 55 correct.
 

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