I’ll See Your 3-Leaf Poison Ivy and Raise You 2

Half a century ago, as a fledgling Boy Scout , I learned the couplet

Leaves of three

Leave it be

Good advice for those who are looking for (or seeking to avoid) Poison Ivy. 

Here in Boggy Thicket country, we have tons of poison ivy - ranging from tiny plants in flower beds to vines over 1/2 inch thick that climb 50 feet or more up into the tops of trees – vines that could support Tarzan on his swing through the jungle assuming he was immune or willing to put up with the God-awful itch.

We also have a vine that grows in the same places and looks almost the same.  It has 5-lobed leaves vs. poison ivy’s 3- lobed leaf.  In spite of the similarity, I had always assumed until this year that the 5-leaf vine was benign. 

This year, I discovered a vine growing on a White Oak just outside our kitchen window that seems to have both 5-lobed and 3-lobed leaves on the same plant!

 

I contacted Jon Sachs of   Poison-Ivy.Org who tells me that in his years of cataloging poison ivy from across the country he has only seen one instance of a 5-leaved poison ivy vine.  He says he doesn’t mention it in his lectures or on his website because it would just confuse his audience.