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Anacardiaceae family

Atlantic Poison Oak Toxicodendron pubescens

Native
Also known as: eastern poison oak · poison oak

Atlantic Poison Oak is a perennial shrub native to the lower 48 states. It grows to 3 ft and blooms Apr – May.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 7 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
3 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Fall colour
Bloom (the flower's colour) Fall colour
Bloom · Apr – May — 8 obs · USA-NPN — Nature's Notebook (CC BY 4.0)
Fall colour · 128 obs · USA-NPN observed “coloured leaves” — timing varies by site & year
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~15 caterpillar species

Toxicodendron supports ~15 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Toxicodendron in North America, including:

Acharia stimulea · Saddleback Caterpillar Moth ✦ Acronicta longa · Long-Winged Dagger Moth ✦ Archips argyrospila · Fruit-Tree Leafroller Moth ✦ Caloptilia rhoifoliella · Sumac Leafblotch Miner ✦ Cameraria guttifinitella · Poison Ivy Leaf-Miner Moth ✦ Cingilia catenaria · Chain-Dotted Geometer ✦
+ 8 more species →
Epipaschia zelleri · snout moth ✦ Episimus argutana · leafroller moth ✦ Gelechia sabinella · Juniper Gelechiid Moth ✦ Lambdina fiscellaria · Hemlock Looper ✦ Lophocampa maculata · Spotted Tussock Moth ✦ Lymantria dispar · Gypsy Moth ✦ Marathyssa basalis · Light Marathyssa ✦ Paectes oculatrix · Eyed Paectes ✦
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0). ✦ = recorded on this exact species.
✦ Bees 1 bee visitor

1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Atlantic Poison Oak :

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 7 birds

Open records of who else uses Atlantic Poison Oak — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Frequently grows with

Across 135 U.S. vegetation-survey plots that recorded Atlantic Poison Oak, these catalog species turned up most often in the same plot — a real field co-occurrence signal, not a planting prescription.

Longleaf Pine · 83% Common Persimmon · 82% Anisescented Goldenrod · 73% Winged Sumac · 72% Narrowleaf Silkgrass · 70% Turkey Oak · 66% Dwarf Huckleberry · 64% Bluejack Oak · 63%
"%" = share of this plant's plots that also held the species. From sPlotOpen → (Sabatini et al. 2021, CC BY 4.0) — open vegetation plots: wild community composition, not garden design.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (24) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[14] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[15] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)
[16] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[17] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[18] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[20] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[21] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[22] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[23] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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