Talk:Poison ivy (disambiguation)

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[edit] Requested move

Move Poison ivy to Poison ivy (disambiguation), and Poison-ivy (plant) to Poison ivy. The plant is far more better known than a cartoon character, song, film, or some person's nickname.

Poison ivy article used to be about the plant till a unilateral page move yesterday. The editor explained that a violet is a disambiguation page, too. But word violet has two widely known meanings, the plant and the colour. Poison ivy is different, it has only one primary, well known meaning.

Also, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Wordsmyth dictionary, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, WordNet dictionary, my English-Finnish dictionary and NCBI [1] know only spelling "poison ivy" without a hyphen. So the plant isn't a poison-ivy. –Hapsiainen 23:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
--Chaosfeary 00:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Support per above reasons. DreamGuy 17:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I have never seen the hyphenated form outside Wikipedia. We should not be creating our own spelling or punctuation rules. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I disagree with the whole hyphenation business. WormRunner 23:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. All other cases of poison ivy take their name from the plant. --Apostrophe 23:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support for Apostrphe's reason and don't consider the hyphen either. E.g., Elephant ears aren't ears or elephants. LuiKhuntek 08:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - for the reasons cited before - MPF 10:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

[edit] Poison-ivy is the correct term and Poison-ivy the plant is NOT the only use of the two words

See Talk:Toxicodendron#Hyphenation for a previous discussion on this on which it was decided to keep the hyphenation, as per common practice and standard in all botanical works.

Poison-ivy is the correct term for the plant and differentiates it from ivy - Poison-ivy is NOT a type of ivy. It's hypenated to show clearly that it isn't a species of Hedera (Araliaceae), which is otherwise implied by the name 'ivy'. Compare e.g. Poison-oak, Douglas-fir, Osage-orange, etc. Non-botanical dictionaries are not arbiters on this subject and are pretty much irrelevant.

The plant poison-ivy is just one of many with the name, and a lot more people search for Poison Ivy, the female lead of The Cramps or Poison Ivy, the comic book/film/television character, than you might think. As per precedence with Violet I believe this should stay in it's current form... --Chaosfeary 00:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Ther is non consensus in Talk:Toxicodendron#Hyphenation discussion, you can't appeal to it. NSCB is a scientific website, and it is poison ivy there. It is also only poison ivy in USDA/NRCS Plants Database. I could find poison-ivy only from Funet species list as an alternative spelling. I don't read English scientific plant journals or such, so could you give some examples where the hyphenated form is used? I can't find any guideline on hyphenating plant names in Wikipedia.
The general dictionaries above use forms Douglas fir (the species), Osage orange (again species). I dont' know where the hyphenated spelling is used. According to the discussion in Toxicodendron not all scientific literature hyphanates the names. When I read it, I got the idea that hyphenating is the less used plant name form. –Hapsiainen 01:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, Western Poison-oak is another example very similar to Poison-ivy (plant) (also with a section explaining the hyphenation)... It is common/standard usage in a botanical context... --Chaosfeary 01:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
You can't say that A is true because A is true. The Western Poison-oak article just says that the usage is standard, but it gives no further details. Its talk page just refers to Talk:Toxicodendron#Hyphenation. You also can't say that something is standard because it is used in Wikipedia. Again, we have no guideline on this.
Funet has only poison oak, not poison-oak. But I found poison-oak from NCBI [2]. It also has Douglas-fir and Osage orange. USDA Plants database has Osage orange, Douglas-fir, poison oak. So only Douglas-fir seems to be commonly spelled with the hyphen, not the others. I looked at species, not some plant genus. I am still waiting for other examples. I think that this should be discussed in WikiProject plants. -Hapsiainen 13:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I started the discussion there. -Hapsiainen 18:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Hedera helix (Araliaceae) is not a true ivy either. The true ivy is Cissus, which is both Greek and Latin for "ivy," in the family Vitaceae.
Putting a hyphen in poison ivy is following the US foresters standardization of common tree names, in which trees, like box-elder (which isn't an elder), prickly-ash (which isn't an ash), and Douglas-fir (which isn't a fir) need to take hyphens. The problem is that the US foresters guidelines are not binding on anyone except US foresters. There are no "correct" common names; the only names that are "legally" correct are scientific names (Latin names) under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. I vote that "poison ivy" is a far better name than "poison-ivy" because "poison ivy" is the name that is used most commonly, and that's the only correct way of determining a "common name." —Gadelson 23:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Move Poison ivy to Poison-ivy. It is not an ivy, and should not be classified with them. - MPF 00:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Nobody is classifying it with them by simply referring to its real name. The hyphenated version is a minor version used by a tiny minority of people. We already had this discussion and it was moved and fixed. You would have us undo what we just agreed to do. DreamGuy 09:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm pointing out that the said 'agreement' was premature, and that we should return to how it has been - MPF 10:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
You aren't pointing out, you are claiming, and your claim doesn;t make any sense. Wikipedia naming conventions clearly state that we use the most common name, and in this case that's fary and away "poison ivy" -- the fact that a tiny number of people get bent out of shape thinking that the name is misleading (newsflash, lots of names of plants and animals are misleading, that's just how they are) means that they can change the name of the plant. That's not how things work. As soon as you can point to a reference showing that a majority of dictionaries and references spell it with a hyphen, then you have an argument. Until then you have your personal preference, which doesn;t overrule how the rest of the world spells it. DreamGuy 21:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks like I'm coming into this late but I'll weigh in with my own two cents (US). First, there is no such thing as a "correct" common name. Common names by their very nature vary over time and over geographic regions; thus any particular plant species can have any number of different "common" names. (This is why I think all "common" names should redirect to the botanical name, rather than vice-versa.) Second, the hyphenated form is a relatively recent (and in my opinion rather tortured) linguistic invention that is making a valiant attempt at precision but has little or no support in the real world. Like it or not, "ivy" or some unhyphenated variant thereof is used as the common name of many vining plants other than members of the genus Hedera. This is precisely why we use botanical names for precision rather than common or vernacular names. MrDarwin 16:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Also late, but I'll agree with MrDarwin... just move it to Toxicodendron radicans if a specific title is desired. SB Johnny 17:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toxicity when ingested?

The article notes it as toxic when ingested, but many folks around here (myself included) eat the stuff in order to desensitize ourselves (works, actually). Is there a source for this claim? Should I be long dead by now? :) SB Johnny 17:25, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Folks 'round here run out in front of slow-moving vehicles so as to develop an immunity to being hit by a bus. Sheesh... The contact dermatitis that develops after contact with urushiol is a result of an auto-immune response. For the majority of people who are not immunune to it, sensitivity increases with exposure; it doesn't diminish. Every year, this myth about eating poisin ivy to build up resistence lands people in the hospital with life-threatening ulcerations of the mouth, throat, stomach & gastro-intestinal tract. Stick to extracts of capsaicin if you have a burning desire to irritate your G.I. tract. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.32.143.124 (talk) 23:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC).
I've got no clue about the subject myself (I prefer lettuce in my salads!), but The Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management Program lists it as myth #2; IvyOff.com confirms that. This page, however, indicates that it has worked for some people. Drew 01:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a small percentage of the population who are not allergic to urushiol. Members of this lucky group could eat it, smoke it, rub it on their skin, etc... without incurring any ill effects. Unfortunately, this leads to the myth that everyone can do these things and not suffer any harm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.60.124 (talk) 09:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

well, as for the fatality of poison-ivy the one and only time i was exposed to it i was in a coma for 2 days, and they had me on benadryl for over 2 months after i came out of the coma. the exposure was on my skin, so no i didn't eat any, but some people are more allergic than others to poison-ivy thus the name 'poison-ivy' since other plants can be mistaken for poison-ivy there is of course the chance that people are mis-identifying the plant and eating a harmless plant that happens to look like poison ivy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kesuki (talk • contribs) 23:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Altitude

I live well above 5,000 feet (in Colorado Springs) and we have our share of poison ivy. It grows primarily near streams and other drainage ways.

[edit] curing poison ivy rash

crushing then rubbing virginia creeper leaves on poison ivy rash stops the itch almost immediately and kills the rash in a few days

The juice of Jewelweed plants is very effective against poison ivy, too, either as a cure or if you suspect you have been exposed. Gather about half a trash bag full, puree them in a blender, and filter the juice to get the pulp out. Soak gauze in the juice and apply to whatever itches. This is fairly well known as folk medicine; perhaps someone less lazy than me can find a citation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.68.103 (talk) 01:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removing link to Poison Oak article

It appears that the topic "Poison Oak" now links to "Toxicodendron" and is therefore any link is an artifact worthy of removal. -APM

[edit] Latin name and leaf margins

First, is there a reason the article doesn't mention the name Rhus radicans? Has it fallen out of favor among taxonomists or something? Second, the leaves in the photo, and to an even greater extent the leaves in the drawing on the commons, seem oddly un-serrated to me. I don't think I've ever seen poison ivy like that; in fact, I'm used to identifying poison ivy by the large, asymmetrical serrations on the two side leaflets. Is there a smooth-margin variety that's more common in some other part of the world (I'm in Tennessee)? --Allen 04:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes and yes. It was moved from Rhus to Toxicodendron quite a few years ago, and there are quite a few leaf shapes (unfortunately). SB_Johnny | talk 23:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. But since we mention one old Rhus name, is it okay if I add the other as well? Also, why does Talk:Poison ivy redirect to Talk:Poison ivy (disambiguation)? Okay if I move it back to Talk:Poison ivy? --Allen 05:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Rhus radicans is just as commonly found in the literature as Rhus toxicodendron and should therefore be mentioned at the beginning of the entry. Both names are clearly incorrect, as recent molecular evidence has shown that the genus Toxicodendron is not closely related to the genus Rhus within the family Anacardiaceae. See the dissertation work of Susan Pell. —Gadelson 23:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This poison ivy lookalike has been left out

Young box-elder saplings are almost indistinguishable from poison ivy. They are small and have three leaves, and they are quite numerous at least in the middle of the U.S., where poison ivy is plentiful. The old saying "leaves of three, let it be" scared me in the woods for most of my life even when it wasn't ivy. T'would be nice to be able to know the difference. But I digress. I vote an addition of box elder for a lookalike.

Almost everything with three leaflets (and some without) seems to look like poison ivy to someone. I would at least ask that if you add box-elder that you describe clearly how it differs from poison ivy. I'm not sure what to do with this list of lookalikes in general (is it supposed to be a really long list, or just a list of the most common plants which look similar, or a list of the plants which are most similar, or what?). Kingdon 16:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Check out the photos here: www.savorlife.com/special_pages/g_poisonivy.htm I'm convinced nobody is aware of this lookalike because it's so close to the real thing. I'll have to do some research on how to tell the difference before considering adding it to the article. Sorry, too lazy to login with my username.

[edit] Added section on box elder

This was always an annoyance of mine, as box elder is quite common in many of the woods that poison ivy is, and it looks much more like PI than any other lookalike in my opinion. Added a picture of the two next to each other. I finally have a foolproof way of telling the difference, which is now in the article. If someone can align the picture better than I did, you're free to try. Hammiesink

Looks good. I cleaned up some wording, but I don't know how to fix the picture/alignment problems. Also, you linked to Box elder which is a disambiguation page; one should link to (in this case) Acer negundo instead. Kingdon 15:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks! Actually, if you can, change the wording to reflect the fact that adult Box Elder has five leaves, and young saplings CAN have three, although they can also have five. In other words, five leaves is the most common. Hammiesink

Well, feel free to suggest wording but I have revised the wording to be more vague (the Acer negundo article is really the place to get into details). Seems to me I've seen lots of 3-leaflet box elder (probably of sapling size), but for wikipedia my personal experience isn't very relevant and I'd need to find verifiable sources, and it doesn't seem necessary to get into too many details here. Kingdon 16:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Note on box elder - poison ivy discussion

I came to this site on August 10th, because my wife was doing some yardwork that she wanted help with. I saw a plant, and told her from my boy scout days: "leaves of three, let it be" and she didnt believe me. So I went to Wikipedia with a sample of said plant, and found that it exactly matched what Wikipedia said was a box elder, like what is in this picture. It had opposing leaves exactly coming off the trunk evenly on both sides. It was a mirror image, looking nothing like the poison ivy on the right side of this picture. So, with my newly found knowledge, my wife and I dove in and cleaned out LOTS of brush and loaded my truck and trailer with our overgrown "box elder" plant. That was many long days ago, and I am still covered from head to toe with blisters from our box elder episode. Ive made several trips to the doctor and gotten lots of steroid shots and I'm still quite miserable.

So, with that, I think the whole "poison ivy" reference is flawed, in that I believe that box elder has leaves that alternate from its trunk and the poison ivy has parallel stemming leaves - in opposition to statements made on this page. This picture I believe is also labeled backwards, the poison ivy is on the left and the box elder is on the right.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Boxelder_poisonivy.jpg" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edwright12345 (talk • contribs) 17:25, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] poison ivy response details

"Here's how the poison ivy response occurs. Urushiol makes its way down through the skin, where it is metabolized, or broken down. Immune cells called T lymphocytes (or T-cells) recognize the urushiol derivatives as a foreign substance, or antigen. They send out inflammatory signals called cytokines, which bring in white blood cells. Under orders from the cytokines, these white blood cells turn into macrophages. The macrophages eat foreign substances, but in doing so they also damage normal tissue, resulting in the skin inflammation that occurs with poison ivy." [3] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.87.202.67 (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] steroids

"Smearing on hydrocortisone... or other topical corticosteroids, will help suppress the itching and give temporary relief, but does little to hasten the drying up of the rash. Similarly, taking an oral antihistamine, such as benadryl, can help with the itching quite a bit, although it does not speed up resolution of the rash. Taking benadryl at nighttime will make most people drowsy and help them sleep through the night without itching. Again, don't use benadryl cream or spray topically, because this can cause its own reaction...

"In severe cases of poison ivy, poison oak, or poison sumac it is a good idea to see a doctor. Sometimes large blisters need to be drained, and sometimes an oral steroid such as prednisone may be useful. Systemic steroids produce rapid resolution of both the itching and the rash. If they are needed, a gradually tapering dosage over about 12 days should be given. The dosage needs to be tapered to avoid side effects after discontinuing use, and the entire course should be taken since stopping earlier may result in a rebound rash as bad as the original." [4]

It would be helpful to have more information about the pros and cons of treating a skin reaction site with steroid creams. The above source says that topical steroids only help with the itch. (It seems like maybe the best method of immediate itch relief is a hot shower on the place that itches.)-69.87.202.67 18:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Smoking Poison Ivy

Has anyone actually SMOKED Poison Ivy themselves? If so why? JimJacobs 58.168.105.11 08:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be extremely stupid. When people breathe the smoke by accident from brush fires, they end up in the hospital!-69.87.200.24 23:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Palm less sensitive

It seems like palms are less likely to get poison ivy than the back of the hand or other parts of the arm. Why?-69.87.200.24 23:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The palm has a layer of callused skin that does not have blood vessels or nerves.68.117.51.230 06:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] If a reaction occurs, eating mangos can magnify the allergic reaction and, for some, lead to the need for medical attention.[4]

This does not look right, the reference does not say anything about eating the fruit and contact with poison ivy. But says that this person had developed a reaction to poison ivy in the past and when he got some of the juice from the wall of the mango fruit on his skin he had another reaction. The same type of chemicals are in mangos as in poison ivy. The sentence says if you eat mangos AND have contact with poison ivy...i do not know if this is true or not but the reference does not help answer the question. Hardyplants 08:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] some parts written like a 'how-to'

Some parts of this article are written the tone of a 'how-to'. Just one example is "you should cleanse exposed areas...". The same infomation can be kept, but not written in a form that reads like 'instructions'; that's just not the way we do it here. ike9898 14:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not sure all that information should be kept, but we should at least clean up the language as you suggest. Kingdon 16:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest moving the "how-to" info to Wikibooks, if it isn't already there, then link to that from this article (perhaps make it a prominent link, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has looked to Wikipedia for that info). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikibooks might be an option. For more background see "Textbooks and annotated texts" at WP:NOT#INFO. Kingdon 16:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Here's one article already on Wikibooks. Didn't the "how-to" in the article come from the CDC? If so, it might be in the public domain, and a good candidate for Wikibooks? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hot water treatment

A very effective method for relieving the itching of the rash is to apply very hot water to the area, because heat releases the histamine in the skin (which causes itching), so it basically itches so much that it feels like scratching; once the itching subsides, then the histamine is depleted and you won't itch for hours. If someone wants to add something like this to the article, it might be helpful Strumphs 14:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it here, but it might belong at Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis. It seems to me that is the best place to write about the medical aspects. If we try to include much of this in plant articles, we'll get a hopeless set of partial articles at poison oak, toxicodendron, and other places. As for the hot water, my personal experience is that the hot water helps but to add it to wikipedia we need sources. Maybe it has been published in a medical journal or some place like that. Kingdon 14:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)