It's late spring and poison ivy is in full swing, but so are several plants that look very much like poison ivy. Here's a run down of how to identify what plant you're dealing with and if it's a potential threat or ally.
"Leaves of three, leave it be.", is a solid rule of thumb when in doubt. Both poison ivy and poison oak have three leaves and can cause an allergic reaction when your skin comes in contact with the oily resin (urushiol) found on their leaves and stems. However, avoiding all three leaved plants is also not ideal. Our blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, dewberries, wood sorrel all are three leaved edible plants. Boxelder trees also have three leaves and look darn near identical to poison ivy to the untrained eye; however, boxelders are important native trees that provide a significant food source for moths and butterflies and help to restore ecological balance by competing against invasives for resources.
Above is a drawing of poison ivy. Notice how the softly rounded teeth on the three leaflets face away from the other leaflets. Additionally, the leaves attach to the stem in an alternating pattern.
Poison ivy is often found growing along the edge of trails, fencing, or up tree trunks. The vines will often develop hair-like roots along them. Be wary of these hairy vines, especially in the winter when there are no leaves to help you identify this plant, as contacting the vine and roots can still cause an allergic reaction even without leaves.
The easiest way to tell the difference between poison ivy and boxelder is the leaf pattern. Boxelder has nearly identical leaves, but they grow in an opposite pattern as opposed to poison ivy's alternate leaf pattern. Instead of having a vine growth habit like poison ivy, boxelders grow straight up into trees. Sometimes in its young stages poison ivy will look more like boxelder, but boxelder has greener leaves when young whereas poison ivy has red in its young leaves. Boxelder trees are important native trees that provide a significant food source for moths and butterflies and help to restore ecological balance by competing against invasives for resources.
Poison oak looks very similar to poison ivy, and has an equal potential to induce an allergic response when contacted. The most obvious difference between poison ivy and poison oak is that poison oak's leaves look more like the leaves of an oak tree. Poison oak also has the potential to cause an allergic reaction when contacted similar to poison ivy. Its leaflets have tiny hairs on the top and underside unlike poison ivy.
Be very careful when handling poison ivy and poison oak to avoid skin contact or contamination with objects you may touch later. Be wary of water droplets near poison ivy during or after rainfall as the water can splash the allergen inducing compounds around the plant. Never burn poison ivy, as you risk inhaling the allergenic compounds into your lungs.
Other potential look-alikes include our blackberries, raspberries, and dewberries (shown above left to right) all have much more serrate teeth along the leaflet edge and can have 3-9 leaflets per compound leaf. The stems typically are thorny as well, but there are varieties of these berries that are thornless.
Strawberry leaves and False-strawberry leaves are compound and made of three deeply serrated leaflets, much different than the rounded broad toothed edging of poison ivy.
Not to mention, strawberry plants stay closer to the ground and do not seek to climb up things like poison ivy does.
I hope this helps! Be safe my friends!
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