POISONOUS PLANTS 



of the nomad tribe of Touch Not 

 are harbored by this family, and 

 bring unmerited disgrace upon the 

 heads of innocent brethren. Poison 

 Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac, 

 or Elder, as it is locally called, are true 

 Sumacs, and yet possess differences which should 

 prevent any danger of confused identity. 



The Poison Ivy is a vine entirely too common 

 from Canada to Florida, and from the Atlantic 

 coast to Utah. It is made up of a tough woody 

 stem, thickly bearded with hairy air -roots by which 

 it climbs over rocks, fences and to the tops of 

 high trees, with leaves composed of three leaflets 

 only, and wears in June loose clusters of dull 

 greenish flowers growing from the leaf -axils, soon 

 replaced by glassy, opaque berries of a similar hue. 

 Thus equipped, it pursues its career of mingled 

 beauty and vice. Being myself as yet immune to 

 its poisoned breath and touch, I cannot but dwell 

 upon its beauty, for it rivals the five-leaved Vir- 



