Hi Vlado,
Re: Poison Ivy --
I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
Some people can get a rash just walking by it.
In the fall here, tiny white flowers bloom on the Ivy -
and the leaves are oily and shiny -- it's the oil that
protects the plant and gives people the rash.
I use gloves if pulling it up around the stairs - but so
far, so good -- no ill effects yet.
The plant is easily recognizable - even for me. :)
Best,
June
Hi Vlado,
Soon you will have to find a picture of it on the web :)
A great many jokes are made about poison ivy. The three
leaves grouped together are very noticeable. Even as
children we knew the plant. It flowers late so it won't
have to compete with other flowers for polination.
One day at work a woman wanted to clean her office window
and she cleaned the screen and pulled away the ivy outside
thinking it was English Ivy. Oooops! She knew later.
I was cutting it too with scissors, but I wasn't handling it.
It had grown over the window and was blocking my view :)
It had to go. Hee hee.
June
The plant is easily recognizable - even for me. :)
Hi Kay,
Re: Using the weedwhacker
Well, I'm sort of careful -- of course one of these days it may
have its revenge! 'Till then, I show it no mercy. :)
> I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
> June, I hope your weed whacker is used for nothing else, and you're
wearing long pants, socks, and long sleeves... the sap
tends to be flung far and wide this way, and it sticks to tools nicely.
Kay, this semester I'm taking a "bug" course. Bio 286. I think
we will be collecting bugs. :))
> I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
> Some people can get a rash just walking by it.
June, I hope your weed whacker is used for nothing else, and you're
wearing long pants, socks, and long sleeves... the sap tends to be flung
far and wide this way, and it sticks to tools nicely. Which sets you up
for exposures when you least expect it. A friend who's quite sensitive
wasn't thinking when he handled some gloves he'd pulled PI with, then
answered a call of nature without washing his hands thoroughly. I
understand from his wife that the resulting rash was spectacular.
You do need to get some of the sap (the chemical is urushiol) on your
skin. The folks who can get it "just walking by" aren't paying attention
to what they're walking through, or their handling something with sap on
it. (Urushiol is stable at room temps for at least a hundred years, which
we know by susceptible volunteers handling dated herbarium specimens.)
Slightly nasty teacher trick: I used to tell my plant taxonomy students
that the one plant that they had to be able to identify to species, by
sight, was poison ivy, because I didn't want them having problems. (They
also had to sight-recognize about 50 plant families, and we keyed all
plants to species -- but you don't want to dissect a poison ivy plant
for keying!)
They'd all assure me that they could recognize it 50 ft away and NEVER
would walk into it, through it, or handle it. So I'd solemnly accept
their assurances, tell them that they couldn't depend on me to keep them
out of it, since I wasn't sensitized and didn't pay that much attention to
it.
A few days later, when we were outside, I'd walk them into a bunch
of box elder seedlings (Acer negundo). These look remarkably like
the common ground form of PI, except they've got opposite leaves
instead of alternate. After standing in there for a couple of minutes,
I'd casually ask what they were standing in. Almost invariably, the
entire class would jump about 6 ft in the air... they hadn't noticed.
After the adrenaline rush was over for them, I'd point out the various
growth forms of PI again, and make them differentiate PI from other
local plants that were similar in structure, color or texture. And
I'd never see a student standing in or holding PI again.
I noticed, too, that the ornithologist and the entomologist started
walking their classes into box elder seedlings....
Kay Lancaster kay@fern.com
Hi June,
> Re: Poison Ivy --
> I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
> Some people can get a rash just walking by it.
An I`m getting a rash even thinking of it! Darn! :-))
> In the fall here, tiny white flowers bloom on the Ivy -
> and the leaves are oily and shiny -- it's the oil that
> protects the plant and gives people the rash.
Phew! Awful thing!!
> I use gloves if pulling it up around the stairs - but so
> far, so good -- no ill effects yet.
> The plant is easily recognizable - even for me. :)
Sure it will for anyone that has dealt with it. :-)
Vlado
Here's a nice photo and description:
http://agri.gov.ns.ca/pt/ipm/weeds/pibw9608.htm
--
Barbara Martin
Editor, The Cottage Garden
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/cottage_gardening
Active Co-Owner, Gardens List
mailto:gardens-request@lsv.uky.edu
Regional Horticulturist, National Gardening Association
http://www.garden.org
> Hi Vlado,
> Soon you will have to find a picture of it on the web :)
Aargh! I have picture of it in my books. It looks quite inconspicious,
though. Pretty vine at first look. But when touched, obviously not! :-))
Ewww....
Well, at the moment am I looking at the poison ivy photo in Urania
Pflanzenreich. It differs very much from the common ivy!
> I was cutting it too with scissors, but I wasn't handling it.
> It had grown over the window and was blocking my view :)
> It had to go. Hee hee.
Hee hee! ;-)
Vlado
On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 21:55:17 +0200, "Vladimir Vl. Zachov"
> Pretty vine at first look. But when touched, obviously not!
The vine is still pretty after you touch it. But your skin isn't :)
--
Magda Plewinska mplewinska@mindspring.com
Miami, FL, USA
If you like it that way, OK ! :-)
Vlado
Thanks, I`ll check it out.
Vlado
----------
Hi Vlado,
Re: Poison Ivy --
I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
Some people can get a rash just walking by it.
In the fall here, tiny white flowers bloom on the Ivy -
and the leaves are oily and shiny -- it's the oil that
protects the plant and gives people the rash.
I use gloves if pulling it up around the stairs - but so
far, so good -- no ill effects yet.
The plant is easily recognizable - even for me. :)
Best,
June
Hi Vlado,
Soon you will have to find a picture of it on the web :)
A great many jokes are made about poison ivy. The three
leaves grouped together are very noticeable. Even as
children we knew the plant. It flowers late so it won't
have to compete with other flowers for polination.
One day at work a woman wanted to clean her office window
and she cleaned the screen and pulled away the ivy outside
thinking it was English Ivy. Oooops! She knew later.
I was cutting it too with scissors, but I wasn't handling it.
It had grown over the window and was blocking my view :)
It had to go. Hee hee.
June
The plant is easily recognizable - even for me. :)
Hi Kay,
Re: Using the weedwhacker
Well, I'm sort of careful -- of course one of these days it may
have its revenge! 'Till then, I show it no mercy. :)
> I'm glad I can get it whacked down with my weed whacker.
> June, I hope your weed whacker is used for nothing else, and you're
wearing long pants, socks, and long sleeves... the sap
tends to be flung far and wide this way, and it sticks to tools nicely.
Kay, this semester I'm taking a "bug" course. Bio 286. I think
we will be collecting bugs. :))
