Look, But Don't Touch by photosynthesis

Photography • Flowers/Plants • posted on Sep 28, 2013

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Description

Continuing along the theme of cognitive dissonance, this is poison oak, a pleasant enough looking plant with very unpleasant qualities for humans who come into contact with it. The skin rash it causes comes from an oily chemical on the plant called urushiol. Sensitivity to it is very variable, though - my wife breaks out badly if she is anywhere in the vicinity of poison oak, whereas I have walked through patches of it & it doesn't effect me. We have quite a bit of it on our property, unfortunately & it's hard to eradicate without using toxic chemicals, so we're careful to avoid it. I have to be careful, even though I seem to be immune, because my wife could come into contact with the urushiol on my clothes. When we had dogs, if they ran through it, she would sometimes get it from petting them. Doesn't seem to be a problem with our cats - maybe they're smart enough to avoid it?