Agave wrote:
.....................................
....................One of the things I discovered was that although
poison ivy normally has 3 leaves (or leaflets) it can also have 5 or
more. The following FDA link states the same.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/796_ivy.html
.................................................


I was thinking about this discussion the other day when I was out in the
yard. Just thinking about the way nature tends to work, it would be more
of a surprise if poison ivy always had 3 leaflets and never 5. Think
about how white clover had 3 leaflets, almost always, but then there is
that occasional 4 leaf clover in the mix.

Steve

Steve wrote:
Agave wrote:
.....................................
....................One of the things I discovered was that although
poison ivy normally has 3 leaves (or leaflets) it can also have 5 or
more. The following FDA link states the same.
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/796_ivy.html
.................................................


I was thinking about this discussion the other day when I was out in
the yard. Just thinking about the way nature tends to work, it would
be more of a surprise if poison ivy always had 3 leaflets and never 5.
Think about how white clover had 3 leaflets, almost always, but then
there is that occasional 4 leaf clover in the mix.

Steve
Whoa, freaky...I was out yesterday planting some ferns and was
reflecting on this and thinking about 3 and 4 leaf clovers too...wow, an
m-field event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_field), well
maybe not, but a coincidence none the less.