Is This Poison Ivy?

Florida Agencies
Florida Agriculture
Florida Botany
Florida Environment
Florida Everglades
Florida Garden Finder
Florida Gardening

Florida Horticulture
Florida Landscaping
Florida Mangroves
Florida Native Plants
Florida Plant Events
Florida Plant Societies
Florida Trees

Interior & House Plants
Kids & Plants
Landscape Design
Nursery Topics
Sustainable Agriculture
Water Gardening
Xeriscape

Virginia Creeper
Virginia Creeper
Parthenocissus quinquefolia
(Linnaeus) Planchon
Florida Distribution

more Virginia Creeper
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants

Summer's Hottest Page!
Is This Poison Ivy?
by Leigh Fulghum

Encountering a plant with three distinct leaves does not necessarily mean the worst- Virginia Creeper is a native plant beneficial to Florida bees and wildlife. But this benign relative of the Grape can sometimes masquerade as Poison Ivy, causing confusion and consternation. Because, though the creeper's compound leaves usually have 5 leaflets, they may also have 3 (or 7). And, both Virginia Creeper and Poison Ivy display red pigments in fall and winter.

Homeowners in Florida may find Virginia Creeper growing on their fences, walls, and on tree trunks. For naturalized landscaping effects or when landscaping for wildlife, it may be desirable to maintain some vines of Virginia Creeper.

Poison Ivy, is also a Florida native plant, but has irritating sap like other of its relatives within the Cashew Family. For most people, an irritating sap is difficult to tolerate in any family.

Poison Ivy

Poison Ivy (above)
Toxicodendron radicans
(Linnaeus) Kuntze
Florida Distribution

Cabbage Palms (Sabal palmetto) which are transplanted from wild areas into urban landscapes as well as trees grown in field nurseries frequently host growths of Poison Ivy, Virginia Creeper, or both.

	The fruit of Poison Ivy is referred to botanically as a drupe, and is greenish-white in color.
	The fruit of Virginia Creeper is a berry and resembles its grape cousins, dark blue to black in color.

The leaves of Poison Ivy are compound, each leaf comprised of 3 leaflets. In general, the stalk of a leaf, whether simple or compound, is the petiole, and the stalk of a leaflet is a petiolule.
A close look at the compound leaves of Poison Ivy shows 3 leaflets with distinct petiolules, one of them long and clearly differentiated from the blade of its leaflet.	The compound leaves of Virginia Creeper typically have 5 leaflets. But the petiolules are so short that the leaflets appear almost sessile, or unstalked.

Do I Have Poison Ivy?

Whether or not one has Poison Ivy is best determined by one's own judgement or by expert firsthand visual inspection of the rash or the plant, and preferably according to a sample of both. However, be careful not to contract a case while harvesting a specimen.

Consult your county Cooperative Extension Service- one of the best sources for getting the right information about local plants. This link will show you where to find a UFL/IFAS Florida Cooperative Extension in your county.

DERMATOLOGY RESOURCES

American Academy of Dermatology: Poison Ivy-Sumac-Oak

Dermatologic Botany

Javier Avalos
Food & Drug Administration, Sacramento, California, USA Howard I Maibach
University of California, San Francisco, USA

More Phases and Faces of Poison Ivy

Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants Images showing: Red Leaves of Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy with Lobed Leaflets, White Flowers of Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy with Few or No Lobed Leaflets

Many gross pictures on this Zanfel Laboratories Site

Outsmarting Poison Ivy and Its Cousins The USDA's article has Poison Ivy advice for the unlucky

Page Credits
Images: From the Plant Systematics Teaching Collection, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Florida Distribution Maps: From the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants by Richard P.Wunderlin and Bruce F. Hansen, USF Institute of Systematic Botany
Text and Design: Leigh Fulghum, Florida Plants Online e-mail: flplants@floridaplants.com