When we teach plant ID, we’re really trying to initially capture the similarities and patterns from one individual plant to the next. Nature, however, has a nasty habitat of being fickle and each plant is a reflection of the environment in which it grows. Poison ivy exemplifies this plasticity of form. The image below – a single image rendered from 100 different photos of poison ivy leaves – is my attempt to capture the average appearance of poison ivy (inspired by the artwork of Jason Salavon – see in particular is Special Moments series).

Mash up of 100 poison ivy leaves

“Poison ivy has 3 leaves” is what I was taught at my first job working in environmental education out here on the east coast. First, poison ivy has three leaflets, not leaves. But second, if we avoided all plants with 3 leaflets while out in the woods, we’d miss out on wild strawberries, jack in the pulpit, hog peanut, and so many other wonderful plants. So in the quiz below you can test your knowledge of these 3 leafleted plants.

And if you want to test your knowledge of poison ivy facts and fiction, check out this quiz.

Results

I created this quiz back in 2018 for my students to test their poison ivy ID skills. Below are the results…