Evening journal., 1897-07-30
A POISONOUS PLANT.
Dangers OF the Deceptive Poison
Ivy.
IL Is Easily Mistaken for the InnO-
cent Virginia Creeper and the
Careless PicnicIeer Comes
10 Grief.

Desperate before the rashness of
youth, parents make short work of
arguments.
"Some plants are poisonous; we cam
not say this one is not; therefore, we
decide that it is poisonous, and charge
you all 10 neither touch nor handle it."
The brighter and prettier the plant the
more suspicious; as if its attractions |
were only meant to beguile human |
creatures TO their ruin. The other day |
| heard a reverend gentleman of books |
telling his boys that the beautiful cat
brier is a deadly poison; and another |
forbade the children to pick the pretty |
bush honeysuckle everywhere in bios
som. Throughout years of likelihood"
and subiection to dooryard supervision
these warnings carry weight, especially
with the girls. But the bold, bad boy
turned loose in summer Edens picks.
eats and does not surely die. Then all
the warnings are tossed over together
and he continues a scoffer until one day,
after debauch at the pond, he comes
home covered from toe. to crown with
the virus of sumach, humble and sore.
It would have been, after all, very
simple to teach him the truth in the be-
ginning, for we have, in fact, only two
native plants in the United States
which are poisonous to the touch, and
but one of these is likely to be met
with. The one, however, is so omni-
present that the terror of it's name COW
ers half the lovely wild things that
/ .1..1s "a
known as poison ivy, and it grows
everywhere, east and south, as well as
upon the Pacific slope, where it differs
little from the eastern species. It's hab-
tat is almost unlimited, but it prefers
sunny. sandy tracts, on mountains,
pasture or coaSt. 1t spreads by the
roadside, perches on fence posts, where
it has long reigned. just beyond the
reach of the plow; climbs trees and,
waving from their boughs, threatens
the passing carriage; slides into the
orchard among the daisies, wraps itself
about the rocks. Mercury vine is one
of its old names, and well suited to its
slippery and insidious habits. When
the picnicler in romantic groves
stretches his tired limbs he finds he is
lying upon n bed of ivy; he pulls him
self up hill by a tough shrub which he
finds, to his horror, is poison vine. If
he lSindles his fire the brush may be full
of 1t, and it is particularly poisonous
when burning. In order to avoid such
pest every child ought to be taught
to recognize it.
Rhus toxicodendron, Greek and
Celtic for red poison bush, is its name
in botany and in medicine. 1t is an ac-
tive. acrid poison, leaving upon the skin
crowd of minute watery blisters,
which may pass through several
stages of malignancy. Some persons
are never poisoned by it; others are
sometimes poisoned. and yet others
cannot even pass it in certain stages of
its growth without being affected.
Often it results in long and painful i'll
ness; in rare cases it is fatal. One
circumstance that increases liability
to danger from it is the variability OF
it's aspect; another is its resemblance
to the innocent Virginia creeper. Both
are freely mingled on our roadsides
( Popularity they are both vines, but
that term belongs only to the creeper;
that is strictly q vine, with all the grace
and suppleness of the wild grape, tC
which it is nearly related. 1t has the
, same long, finger-like tendrils waving
, seductively about to find some chance
= support, and rosettes of palm-shape(
leaves, as if a grape leaf had been Gu
= into five portions set with fine saw
I teeth along the edge. On the con
/ trary, Rhus has three leaflets, the en'
o one the largest and remote from tn
+ others. all irregularly and coarsel.
n toothed. No two of the leaves are jus
r alike. 1t has no tendrils, but climbs
+ like English ivy, by little bristlini
,- rootlets which sprout all along tn
A main stem, and eventually cover it lilS
n moss. These rootlets penetrate post
g or bark of trees. and cling there S
r tightly that the plant cannot be tor
3 Off without dificulty.--N. Y. Post.