Poison ivy grows as a vine when it finds support or as a shrub when it
doesn't. It is not a tree. If it has green to white berries, it is
definitely poison ivy. It is best to get someone who is not allergic to
completely remove the plants for you. The toxic oils will persist on dead
stems and will still be a hazard.

The blisters caused by poison ivy are a result of poisoning rather than
simply swelling aggravated by histamines. It is far more serious than just
an allergic reaction.

There are trifoliate trees that look like poison ivy to the uninitiated but
they are not toxic. The boxelder (Acer negundo) is the tree most often
mistaken for poison ivy, especially when the plants are still small.


Lyne wrote in message
...
I have already read the 400+ items in the thread that ran from 1996 to
2001.

Is it possible to have a poison ivy tree? This is not a tree wrapped
in poison ivy - it is a tree with a non-hairy trunk. It has the
light-colored 3-leaves that (at this time) have red stems and the
leaves look just like the vines that I also have. Oh yeah - the
little green berries are there too. It is about 15-20' tall and has a
nice rounded shape.

Also, are baby poison ivy leaves red, shiny, and more pointy than the
adults? I am finding these very lightly scattered in a field near the
building that has most of the vines.

There is alot of talk about cutting off the vine and applying
Brush-Be-Gone to the stump. It seems to me that it would be better to
spray the leaves because the leaves are pipelines to the root system
so the more leaves you have; the more pipelines.

I was very allergic as a child. I take Claritin for airborne
allergies so I wonder if that might inhibit some of my reaction to the
ivy now. I get little quarter-sized patches of little bumps that itch
some but not alot, plus very stray individual bumps. These could be
bug bites but the patches seem more likely to be poison ivy. The main
question here is "can an antihistamine reduce or prevent the
reaction?"

Finally, everybody talks about Roundup and Brush-be-Gone. My
Weed-Be-Gone -says- that it works for poison ivy. Does anyone know
that it does not?

Thanks!


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