1) Are the big hairy vine stalks that attach to trees covered with the nasty stuff, or is it just the leaves?
2) If they are bad, how long after one has been cut and killed (for example on a fallen tree) does it retain potency?
3) What I'm doing is collecting wood from my neighbors land after he cuts down trees, and some of them have the vine attached. If I just pull off the vine, is the wood safe to handle or not? Will it be unsafe after its been seasoned for a year?
If you're sensitive to it, you should assume "forever".
I wouldn't worry about it - but then I'm pretty nearly immune to the stuff. Your mileage may vary. :-) I doubt there'd be much residue on the wood, but if you're really concerned about it, wear gloves, debark the wood with a hatchet, and discard the bark along with the vines.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
I've always been able to handle poison ivy without having a reaction. My wife, however, has a severe reaction from the smallest exposure. I've climbed trees covered with it and stood and warmed by the fire made with it, breathing the smoke - all without a reaction. That seems to indicate that your answer greatly depends on your allergic reaction to it.
I would agree pretty much with what was said. However, people who are not sensitive to it (it is not a matter of immunity, as there is no toxin involved; some people are allergic, and some aren't) should eat large quantities of it raw to protect that insensitivity. (Well, not everyone; just Doug)
I could roll in the stuff with no ill effect. Then one day when I was 42... It is best to stay away from it, because repeated exposure can trigger allergies.
That's what I thought when he mentioned the hairy vine growing up the tree trunk--could be poison oak, could be a creeper of a zillion sorts, but it ain't poison ivy.
But poison ivy is a vine. It has the three leaves (a pair and then a single in front). This is an untouched forest so I guess they have been growing there a while. What else can it be? Its all over the forest floor too.
It sure is typical of the poison ivy we got up in Connecticut. Sometimes those sucker would get massively fat but always covered with fine "hairs"
See:
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with the description "Notice the very large hairy-looking brown vine growing up the left side of the tree. It's trying to hide, but it's a good indication that the three-leaved plant in the front is poison ivy. I would also suspect some of the smaller vines just behind the leaves are poison ivy, though I wouldn't stick my nose in it to get close enough to see the hairy roots. See the slight lobes on the leaves here."
Better picks of a huge hairy Poison ivy vine are here:
Good advice, as with all plants. How else will you be able to tell if those mysterious plants growing in the flowerbed under your kid's window aren't cannabis...
There are other 'poison' plants besides poison ivy. I even tried removing it in winter temperatures around 10 degrees F. Don't do it without extreme protection, is what I learned. Even the stems have those oils.
The active ingredient in poison ivy, et al is an oil chemically described very similar to oils in chicken fat. But even detergents that are good on such grease still did not stop oils from causing damage (itch). Those oils are also why burning is bad. Dig a deep hole and bury the stuff when it is clearly dead. And be prepared to go after stragglers that pop up their evil little leaves later that (and the next) year. Clearly poison ivy, et al come from the dark side - with all its powers.
Yes, even those v> Here's a link to a site that shows what it looks like (although mine
Yes it is. But the stems aren't "hairy". Not hairy at all.
Larger/older ones have woody stems.
Well, so do Trilliums ;-)
If the three leaves aren't (usually) symmetrical (so you wouldn't say "a pair and a single"), it's probably not PI.
[Generally speaking the three leaves are on stems from the same node - the leaf stems are all the same length and start from the same place.]
"Leaves of three" is simple to remember, but there are many things with three leaves that _aren't_ Poison Ivy (even if symmetrical). Secondly, leaf shape on Poison Ivy varies a lot - more than descriptions or even pictures of it would suggest.
I recognize it by having had one extremely knowledgeable person point out a "guaranteed" PI plant. From then on I'm going on overall impressions of leaf colour/size/sheen/veining/margin, plant/leaf/stem proportions & colour.
I don't think I've been wrong yet.
We're a little too far north for it to "vine" appreciably. Yeah!
I can't think of something specific (that could be called a three leaf vine), but there are others.
Well, where is this forest? That's the first thing we'd need to know. What the vine *might* be could be *very* different, depending on whether you're in Florida, Maine, Illinois, or Bolivia.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
You may have a different variety up there in Canada from what we see here in the US... most of our poison ivy looks hairy, if it's old enough. Young plants, no. Old vines... yeah. Really hairy.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
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