Evening star., 1947-08-01
This and That
By Charles E. Trace,pell,

Templeton Jones, whose odd sense of humor
is proverbial, thought 1t would be joke on
his dear associates to take down to the Office
pot of Rhus toxicodendron
They won't know 1t is poison ivy" he
grinned.
you might catch it yourself" some one sug-
gested to him.
mot chance" he said. II never touch the
stuff"
Jones looked around his yard for a neat
little plant
Usually they are not hard to find.
Our suburban areas are fairly reeking with it.
1t grows along roadways, streets, in park
ings and even in the best cultivated gardens.
Our feathered friends, as birds are sometimes
called, help spread the Seeds
The plants come up in perennial borders, and
even in the grass, and most of them are over
locked, even by ardent gardeners.
This sad state of affairs comes about because
most home gardeners do not recognize poison
ivy.
Actually 1t is a pretty plant, with those neat
green leaves in clusters of three. This is what
distinguishes it from the Virginia creeper, with
leaves flve-fold.
Templeton Jones at last set up shout.
Il have found beauty" he called.
Surely 1t was neat with tiny leaves-but still
in threes, plain as could be.
Jones sought a neat pot to put the little
plant in.
He could picture the indifference of his mates
at the Office. Jones was an old screwball for
being interested in such things. Real men
liked to play golf, shoot, fish, etc. Whoever
heard of one being interested in odd plants?
Jones could just see their indifference-until
he told them what the pretty little plant was
Then it would turn to hurt amazement.
Nobody but fool would keep pet poison
ivy plant on his desk
Wags at first would swear it wasn't poison ivy
at all. Most people really didn't know it, "a
favorite Jones thence.
After the proper pot was found the plantlet
was lifted into it, gingerly, because there is
never any telling about this one.
The leaves were not more than half an inch
long, but there was just beginning OF the red
which gives the plant It's fall color.
Many person, unwise in the ways of plants
brings armsful Of it home to decorate the
house. It's too bad
!, Jones kept picturing the fun he was going to
have with that poison ivy plant, but he reck-
oned without his cat
Now the Jones cat is an individual in his own
right. He has waggish sense Of humor all his
own, so when he saw that neat plant in its
neat pot, reposing on the. pantry window sill
to keep it out of harms way, he has his own
ideas. -
Knowing nothing about Rhus, in any of its
forms, the cat rightfully regarded something
green as something to chew.
So he went to work on Jones pet little poison
ivy plant.
By the time he was discovered the plant lay
in shreds.
AS far as Jones could discover all the COM
ponent parts of the plant were found, how
ever.
The cat, then had not eaten any, but simply
had done good job of destroying it.
This put the kind-hearted Jones in dither.
Would cat get poison ivy?
Every day thereafter Templeton Jones care
fully scrutinized the animals mouth, to see if
he could find any evidences of disaster.
The cat steadfastly ate and played as usual
hence Jones feels that he is right in stating
that cats are immune to poison ivy.
We suggested to him that maybe the irritat
ing oil had not time to develop, in such small
plant, but Jones irritaby stuck to his dag
nosis 1t was small cat, he said. We believe
he was just sore because his plan to rib his
associates had failed.