What's up everyone? Welcome back to the podcast. We're here again with Dr. Mark

Meriwether Vorder Bruegen. Again, he's the creator of Foraging Texas. He's the

author of Idiot's Guide Foraging, then in his real life he's a formulation

chemist for consumer products things like workman's friend when they make a

barrier skin cream that I'm going to be using this year in the garden just to

protect myself a little bit more than I normally do.

So today we're talking about poison ivy and specifically the science of poison ivy and

Dr Mark I don't really know a lot about this I haven't encountered it too much in my life

and I just hear from friends who have how terrible it is so could we maybe start off with a bit of an

overview of exactly what Poison Ivy is?

Sure and I gotta say you are a lucky lucky person.

Yeah.

So, poison Ivy, well there's poison Ivy poison oak, and poison sumac.

Poison ivy is a vine.

Poison oak is a small brush,

and that's more likely what you're going to find out in California.

And then the poison sumac is a small tree. Of those

really poison ivy is by far the most common. It's pays to be aware of what it looks like. Luckily it's actually a very distinctive

vine. It's easy to see. First, as the vine, no thorns, absolutely no thorns on

it, but the vine, the stems of the vine are covered with little

hairs I tell people if you see a hairy vine clinging to a tree clinging to a

wall most likely it's poison ivy. You might have heard leaves of three, let it be.

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