Ye who are kicking against Fate,
Tell me how it is that on this hill-side,
Running down to the river,
Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,
This plant draws from the air and soil
Poison and becomes poison ivy?
from "Calvin Campbell" by Edgar Lee Masters
Just in time for Halloween, I'm going to bring up one of the scariest plants known to man. There's nothing like the horror of taking a Sunday saunter, innocent as a babe in the woods, only to look down and discover you're ankle deep in leaves-of-three. Instead of seeing your past life flash before your eyes, you're more likely to feel your blood run cold as you envision your itchy, irritable future.
Although there are a lot of other P words we can fling at this ivy--perverse, pernicious, pestilent--its R-rich Latin name indicates why it will always get the upper hand. Rhus radicans can be interpreted simply as a plant "having rooting stems." That means the creepy crawler can attach itself to whatever it darn well pleases.
And, as Pamela Jones points out ominously in Just Weeds, the villain has many guises. "Each leaf consists of three leaflets attached to a single leaf stem. . .Unfortunately, recognition is often frustrated by the variations to be found in those leaflets. They may be smooth edged, lobed, or toothed, glossy or dull, dark or pale green, slightly hairy or hairless." That explains why you can contract the rash without realizing you've ever been near the plant. Even people like me, who supposedly "don't get poison ivy," are scared to death of it. We know our immunity isn't guaranteed to last forever.
As its name indicates, rhus radicans is a sumac. (Rhus derives from the Greek rhodus or "red.") It was once known as rhus toxicodendron, which is where the "poison" comes in! Poison oak or rhus diversiloba--which we can assume is diversely lobed--is a more western type of the plant. Since it's a New World species, poison ivy was an unpleasant surprise to the original settlers. Though we have since generously shared it with other parts of the world!)
In 1609, Captain John Smith noted that: "The poisoned weed is much in shape like our English ivy, but being touched, causeth redness, itching, and lastly, blisters, and which, howsoever after a while pass away of them-selves, without further harm; yet because for the time they are somewhat painfill, it hath got itself an ill name, although questionless of no ill nature."
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