[trentearl]

I got all but one, somewhat surprisingly red maple tricked me.

During university I spent a lot of time in the Carolina woods where poison ivy is abundant. At first you notice the disgusting oily leaves, hairy wood, green spring time berries and the leaves (of three let it be) that come in multiple colors with ample stems often with a dark reddish tint. The leaves come in varying shapes, older seems to be rounder, younger with wide serrations looking similar to red maple. I'm proud to have gotten to the next level, where it seems you just feel the evil presence. Not only intuitively by ecosystem context, but also by the shape of the growth as a whole. This allows you to identify it the winter and from impressively long distances.

Poison ivy is an enemy to the forest explorer, setting up blockades around water features and meadows. The oil can stay on surfaces for what seems like years. I truly hate this plant.

[greenbit]

Once you tangle with it, you can't help but study it, learn what it looks like in all seasons, what kinds of places it likes to grow. It seems to like the sunny edges of clearings, and hard rocky places other plants reject. So naturally it loves to crowd up against places humans tend to travel - beside trails and pathways, the edges of roads. Note the PI patch in summer with the oily leaves, watch it turn bright colors early in autumn, and memorize the look of the field of bare, upright knee-high sticks it leaves behind in the winter.

It's cruel irony that it doesn't bother wildlife, just humans.