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[ted <music AT thenightshades.com>]

The reason I've never heard the whole saw, is I'm out on the west coast
where there is no Virginia Creeper! Yet that's what they told me all my
life- just the first line.
Ted

on 4/7/05 6:52 PM, homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org at
homestead-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> 
> The 'leaves of three' is not for positive identification.  It is because 
> over
> much of poison ivy's habitat there is a vine that looks similar, Virginia
> Creeper, that has five leaves.  Knowing what poison ivy looks like in 
> general,
> vine with clusters of pointy leaves, many people panic when the find
> themselves 
> entangled with Virginia Creeper.  Hence the rest of the saw:
> 
> "Leaves of three, let it be,
> Leaves of five, let it thrive."
> 
> However, better to avoid everything with three leaves than to get a nasty
> rash of poison ivy.