The Crow’s Path Blog

One of the challenges with poison ivy ID is that there’s so much variation from one poison ivy plant to the next. And that old adage "Leaves of 3, let it be" also lumps PI with so many other wonderful 3-leaved (technically 3-leafleted) plants, like wild strawberry, jack-in-the-pulpit, sorrel, etc. So a few years back, I put together a short quiz to test people’s Poison Ivy ID skills against some common lookalikes. While I love plant ID, I’ve long been more interested in the connection between leaf shape and the underlying ecological adaptations. I thought I’d take a closer look here at why there's so much leaf variability in poison ivy…