Moving to Eugene Oregon

It’s April 27 and the new poison oak leaves are just coming out, some red, some orange, some green.

The leaves look a lot like blackberry leaves, but poison oak is shiney and smooth and blackberry leaves are a bit hairy or fuzzy and not smooth or shiney.

Poison oak likes to form ropes and climb trees. We have cut all the ropes climbing our trees on our property, which has greatly reduced the amount of poison oak we have. I took these pictures on our neighbor’s property.

Climbing trees is the primary way it spreads. The climbing poison oak fruits and the birds eat and drop the fruit. On the ground below a tree with poison oak you’ll find lots of poison oak plants on the ground. It’s not always easy to spot the plants on the ground, as you can see in the picture below:

If you hike where there is poison oak, wear clothes that cover you up as much as possible. If you touch it, you have about 10 minutes to wash it off. Use soap and hot water. Also wash the clothes you were wearing in hot water.

Here’s some more pictures:

Filed under: Outdoor Activities, Poison Oak on April 27th, 2009