Poison Ivy Identification #2

I've noticed an up-tick in the number of people visiting my post, Poison Ivy Identification. Written in the month of May, it provides descriptions and photos to help readers identify poison ivy. (Please hop over and read it to learn more). Now that we're into the month of October, that poison ivy looks very different, so I thought fresh photos might help you learn to identify it in the fall.

What follows is a collection of photos I took on October 11th.

Here's a typical example of Poison Ivy growing along the ground.

As it climbs a tree it may look like this:

Or this. Note that in this case, it climbed more than 20 feet in the air. All of the bright leaves you see are poison ivy.

Here's a close-up of the leaves:

And here are the berries. Yes, berries.  (Do not touch them either!) 

And here's what the vines look like when climbing the trees. Those little hairy bits help me identify it in the winter when there are no leaves. When I was a kid, I learned the hard way...you can get poison ivy in the winter from touching the vines.

If you live where poison ivy grows, learning to identify it is an important skill. Some people are lucky not to "catch" it but most of us are not so lucky. The rash is, at best, an annoyance, and at worst dangerous enough to warrant being put on steroids by a doctor. It's best to learn to avoid it altogether.

Do you have any tips for identifying/ avoiding poison ivy? Are there other plants you need to avoid where you live?

Related posts:

Poison Ivy Identification

Mystery Rash

Lyme Disease Prevention