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Nov 17, 2023

Poison ivy seedlings can appear in places where it never grew before.

This is the time of year when new poison ivy plants pop up. While poison ivy

This is the time of year when new poison ivy plants pop up.

While poison ivy plants are perennials, meaning they overwinter and grow again from year to year, they also grow from seeds.

Poison ivy berries are not poisonous to birds. Birds eat the ripe berries as part of their normal diet. The soft fleshy part of the berry is digested by the bird's digestive system while the hard shelled seed passes through. When birds perch on branches of trees, electric wires or other structures, they will pass the seeds along with their waste. The seeds land on the ground along with a dose of "starting fertilizer" and germinate. That's why you see so much poison ivy near trees and along fence rows.

If you are not familiar with how the plants look, it can be easy to miss the new seedlings.

The newly sprouted seedlings look just like a miniature version of mature plants. So, by looking at and studying the larger plants you’ll soon be able to form an image in your mind of what to look for.

The old expression "Leaflets three, let it be" is a good one to remember. Sometimes the saying begins, "leaves of three." In either case, it is the best starting place for identifying poison ivy plants, both large and small.

The most common type of poison ivy we see in this part of the state has outside leaflets that have a toothed margin with a shape that vaguely resembles the shape of a thumb. One leaflet appears left handed and the other right handed. The center leaflet has both shapes only smaller.

The prominent thumb is not always present on every plant. Sometimes you’ll come across plants with very shallow or absent toothed leaf margins. Those are more commonly found up north.

Also, the center leaflet is attached to the plant with a longer petiole or stalk than the petioles on the side leaflets.

The mature leaves have a shiny sheen to them which helps them subtly stand out from other surrounding plants.

An important characteristic to remember is the leaflets are attached to the plant's main stem in an alternating pattern, never across from each other. That fact will help you differentiate poison ivy from other lookalikes.

Poison ivy grows both as a climbing vine or as an upright, free-standing plant. It's not unusual to come across a colony of low growing plants that look almost like a ground cover.

Brambles also have leaves of three, but have thorns or spines. Poison ivy doesn't have any prickly parts.

Young box elder trees strongly resemble poison ivy plants, however their leaves are arranged opposite on the main stem rather than the alternate pattern of poison ivy.

The most commonly mistaken plant is Virginia creeper which some people call "five-leaf poison ivy." It has similar growth habits to poison ivy but has five leaflets instead of the requisite three leaflets. That being said, a small number of people are sensitive to Virginia creeper and may develop a rash when handling it.

If there ever was a case for using herbicides, getting rid of poison ivy is it. I once tried removing poison ivy from a ground cover bed manually. When grubbing them out, I wore heavy rubber gloves that went up to my elbow. I carefully placed each piece of plant into single bags for disposal and still ended up with a pretty good rash. It would have been better for me to protect as many surrounding plants with some kind of shield and then spray a glyphosate containing herbicide.

If you make it a point to be aware of three leaflets that are commonly shiny and don't have thorns, you’ll go a long way toward identifying the poison ivy plant. To make doubly sure, see that the leaves are alternating on the main stem.

Once you get it in firmly in mind, poison ivy will become so easy to spot you won't have to look that hard. You’ll just point and say, "Watch out, there's poison ivy!"