Poison Ivy

Either a small shrub or a vine trailing along the ground or climbing on low plants, trees and poles. The leaves are alternate with three pointed and glossy leaflets. The edges of the leaflets may be smooth or toothed, but they are rarely lobed. They are reddish when they first emerge in the spring, are green during the summer, and are various shades of yellow, orange, red, or bronze in the autumn. Greenish-white flowers and whitish-yellow fruit in hanging clusters.

Poison ivy is found throughout the U.S. except along the western coast. Most common in disturbed areas, edges of woods, flood plains, lake shores, stream banks, along fences and around buildings.

Look up poison oak or poison sumac.