BOSTON -- The cool, wet weather Massachusetts has had is producing a bumper crop of the nuisance of summer -- poison ivy.

NewsCenter 5's David Brown reported that it's thriving and quickly spreading.

Wet Weather Produces Bumper Crop Of Poison Ivy

Dan Cannata walked through the Mass Audubon Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary in search of mushrooms. The wet weather had a wide variety of fungus popping up, but the mushrooming mission also came with a bit of danger. The wet, overcast weather is perfect for the poisonous vine that is known by a simple rhyme: Leaves of three let it be.

The wet, overcast weather is perfect for the poisonous vine that is known by a simple rhyme: Leaves of three let it be.

"Definitely the three leaves rule, which everyone knows, and the hairy vine rule, which is the one that a lot of people don't know much about," Cannata said.

Director of the sanctuary Doug Williams has noticed poison ivy all over the place. It's thriving thick on the floor of the forest. It's creeping and wrapping its way up trees and rambling out into open fields.

"Like all the other plants in this area that are benefiting from the rainfall that we've had, poison ivy is also benefiting and so it's growing comparatively more vigorously than it would, say, if we had a season without a lot of rain," Williams said.

When you're outside stay in areas that you are familiar with, such as on the trails, and know what the ivy looks like. If your skin comes into contact with the oil from the leaf, stem or root the dreaded rash may follow.

"What I tell people is learn to recognize it. Spend a day looking at it and becoming familiar with it and then you don't really to have worry about it," Williams said.