Summary: According to the Wall Street Journal, poison ivy has gotten MUCH nastier since the 1950's. Leaf size and nasty oil content are way up.Poison ivy is a common weed-like plant that may grow as a bush, plant or thick, tree climbing vine. The leaves typically grow three leaflets to a stem. The leaves vary greatly in their shape, color and texture. Some leaves are shiny, smooth and elliptical. Others are elongated and toothed with distinct leaflets. In the fall, the leaves may turn yellow, orange or red. Poison ivy can produce small, greenish flowers and green or off-white berries. How do you get poison ivy?
From touching it, or touching something that has touched it, like your clothes or your dog. You normally get it from touching the leaves, but yanking the vine out by the roots - even in winter - will give you a wicked rash. Using a weed eater to remove poison ivy will result in spraying your legs with poison ivy. If you are bare-legged and get scratches while splattered with sap from poison ivy, you may be headed to the
emergency room.
And there are more unusual ways to get it, like breathing smoke from firewood burning with poison ivy on it. Which can also put people into the hospital.
So it is not your imagination that it is worse than when you or your parents were kids.
There IS a safe way to carefully clear poison ivy from your property
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By psychonurse
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I am an RN, who raised 3 kids alone,and retired after 38 years of nursing--in both the psych and medical field. I am a chronic volunteer, working@ a food bank, and helping maintain...read more
