The Fire Element

The bold representation of the fire element, the sun, sits a little lower in the sky as we move into late summer. The searing intensity of the mid summer sun is diminished. However, the red, fiery showing of the poison oak leaves are not diminished. It seems as if all their potency has been channeled into turning the leaves into a flame red before they fall off in preparation for winter. 

Being a deciduous plant, the bright green that shines through in the spring changes color in the fall when the days become shorter.

Poison oak, known by its scientific name Toxicodendron diversilobum, can be quite beautiful with its red color contrasting the other foliage in the forest. I’ve had a few unfortunate run-ins with this plant in the past and have since become very keen on avoiding it while in the forest, but one needs a sharp eye to identify this tricky, shape-shifting plant. 

The diversilobum species was aptly named. The leaves that come in sets of three have a lobed or roundish, scalloped edge. Things get pretty diverse from there. Some leaves are small while others are quite large; red and green leaves can be present at the same time; some plants grow low to the ground, while others become viney and crawl up trees; in the fall, some plants retain their leaves while others shed them and leave exposed branches that still contain the oils that cause an itchy allergic rash in most people.

A poison oak branch without leaves extends out into the trail. To the untrained eye this looks like a harmless branch, but it contains the urushiol oil that causes an itchy rash in most people.