Life | I Just Gotta Share…

Whenever I take a group on a hike, someone always asks me what poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans looks like. Someone inevitably recites, “Leaves of three, let them be.” I always mention that I love to eat raspberries and strawberries, which also have three leaves. So how do you really know?

Poison Ivy has compound leaves with three leaflets (leading to the saying “leaves of three, let it be”). It is really important to know how to identify poison ivy throughout the year because it is ever changing and the oils are always potent and can give you the rash regardless if it has leaves or not.Here are pictures to help you identify poison ivy throughout the year. I hope they help.

The twig breaks through the dried up fall leaves and comes up in early spring.

When the leaves first appear in the spring, they are red and are very shiny.

When looking at the three leaflets notice how they do not all look alike, at least one looks like a mitten.

Poison Ivy is a vine, and very hairy. There are many other woodland vines but none are as hairy.

Poison Ivy changes colors in the fall along with all the other deciduous plants.

I love exploring the woods all year round, but especially during the spring, it’s always thrilling to see what has emerged since my last visit. There’s something about seeing the evolution of the plants peeking through the earth on one visit, to them struggling towards the sun on another and then, finally, blooming. In the past, I’ve been honored to experience them emerge on my daily hikes. Unfortunately, the last couple of years my schedule hasn’t allowed me to go into the woods as much I would like, missing too many of my friends in bloom.

This year has been particularly difficult for me to slip into the woods regularly. However, on my annual birthday hike, I was more than blessed with a spring bouquet. Typically, there is a progression of blossoms in the woods. I call the first ones Spring Indicators: Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara), Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens), Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), and Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). These tend to be the first arrivals and then as the weeks progress, others go into bloom as their blossoms disappear. This year spring has been different on so many levels, and perhaps the plants knew they needed to take advantage of the fine weather to make their move all at once. Lucky for me, it felt like everyone waited to bloom for my birthday hike. Not only was everyone blooming in concert, there was an extraordinary abundance of them. In the past, I might see only few Bloodroot in bloom. This year, I saw more than four large patches of them.

Quite frankly, I am blessed with a fabulous day to be born ~ May 4th. There is nothing better than having a birthday in May, when everything is breaking out of its winter slumber and painting the woods with a rainbow of colors. Although, winter seemed to linger way too long this year, I was not disappointed when spring decided to show herself on the day of my birth.

Check out all the lovelies along the trail.