Someone sent me a PM with a request to ID this one:
5.
I've had to learn to spot it almost by "Spidey sense" as I'm so sensitive to that my outbreaks cause mass panic in others!
Poison Ivy can look surprisingly different but it will always appear in the clusters of three as everyone knows. But lots of plants put out leaves in threes. The color can be varied from a light grass green to a darker emerald -- and the plant in my photo shows both. It changes with the seasonal foliage, too, often coming out crimson in the fall.
The surface of the leaves can look like a flat, matte green, or a shinier almost waxy sheen.
The stalk is a great climber and puts out millions of "hairs" that make it look sort of shaggy as it gets bigger. The leaves can get quite large -- I've seen them 5" wide or more. If the plant is climbing up a tree it will often put out horizontal branches that project 2'-3' from the trunk, each holding a cluster of leaves, and often berry clusters, too.
As said, it takes on surpisingly different appearances. Around here, there won't be many "teeth." Maybe one or two large (1/4") "teeth" per edge, but the real kicker is that they're always arranged a certain way. The center leaf may have no serrations, or one or two, etc -- and they'll be on both edges. The right leaf will have those big "teeth" only on the right edge (or, if there are a larger number of teeth, the number will be biased to the right edge), and the left leaf will only have them on the left edge (or, again, if there are a larger number of teeth, the number will be biased to the left edge.
