Leaves of Three

You know, recognizing toxic plants and critters in California was something of a cinch. In a world of oak scrub forestlands or chapparal or coastal brush, the only plant to look out for was poison oak, which because of California's dry weather, always seemed to have a distinctive reddish hue. That and very broad leaved plants were just not that common, even the regular oaks out West looked gnarled from drought adaptation.
Mike and his brother have shown me the poisonous plants of Carolina over and over again. Poison oak (looks like... oak) poison ivy (oh right, a vine in a million) and then poison lilac (eh, don't worry, it's not as bad as the others). Whathever. I just don't pet plants as much as I used to anymore.
Mike was mowing the side yard recently and brushed up against poison ivy accidentally, noticed it too late, figured it wasn't that bad. He figured his existence had lacked pain for a while. So hours later, it started to flare up. It took two weeks for it to get to its full expression, angry red oozing blisters. We looked up tidbits of information on the stuff online (I actually wrote a review on urushiol when I was in grad school, believe it or not the stuff is key to Japanese lacquerware) and came upon a site of "gruesome photos" that Mike is proud to supplant these dilettantes hands down. See for yourself: http://www.cattail.nu/ivy/ivy_rash.html
BTW: do any of you know where the ".nu" domain belongs?