It gives me the duck face

Like this, only it last for a few days… Image from Emergency Brake from Wikimedia Commons.

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This may, perhaps, be more than you needed to know. But I am allergic to poison ivy. No big deal, you might think. You’re a botanist. Surely you know what it looks like! Just avoid it.

Ah, yes, I can mostly avoid it. Though, hey, poison ivy/oak/sumac ID is actually harder than you might think. Poison ivy and its relatives, in the genus Toxicodendron or “poison tree”, are really phenotypically diverse – that is, they can look really different, and still be in the same species (this is ability is known as phenotypic plasticity, and enjoy *that* can of worms if you decide to look into it). One species is Toxicodendron diversilobum because it’s leaves (lobum) are so, um, diverse. Another is Toxicodendron  radicans because it appearance can vary so… radically. Yeah, sometimes botanist just give things the obvious names.

But wait! The suffering doesn’t end there. The irritant oil that is the source of the suffering (primarily urushiol, one of a several oils found in the these plants called toxicodendrols) is also found in many other members of the plant family that poison ivy belongs to, Anacardiaceae, though at lower levels. This family includes MANGOES. And also CASHEWS. These things are both delicious and not exactly rare in our global food culture. In fact exposure to poison ivy can prepare you to react to mangoes and cashews much more strongly than those with no exposure to poison ivy. And so mango and cashew allergies are *far* more common in North America, where poison ivy occurs, than even in places such as South America or the Indian subcontinent, where mangoes and cashews are grown and widely consumed.

Other inhabitants of North America don’t share my suffering. Whitetail deer have been observed to eat the berries and young leaves, where the urushiol is most concentrated, with no ill effects. But beware! Don’t pick the colorful red leaves in the fall, however charming they look in your holiday wreaths. I really can not discourage this enough.

Toxicodendron radicans. Pretty. But NO TOUCHIE! Image by H. Zell from Wikimedia Commons.

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