Aha! I think that I understand what you and @poncirusguy are saying. Thank you for the explanation with the use of the term “leaflets”. I will attempt to get pictures of both plants to post in order to help elucidate.
Here we have the stem of the boxelder leaf with leaflets. Notice that they are directly across from each other on the tree trunk, as small as it is.
And here we have a pair of pictures showing that the leaf stem (with leaflets) of a poison ivy plant comes off of the plant stem in an alternating fashion so they are not directly across from each other.
Thank you very much to @poncirusguy and @Ginda for pointing this out to me!
When identifying woody plants, thats one of the first things to look for. Opposite is far less common, so if you see opposite growth you’ve narrowed things down considerably. There’s an acronym- MADCapHorse- for the opposite woodies. They are Maple, Ash, Dogwood, Caprifoliaceae (Honeysuckle family), and Horse Chestnut. All other woodies are alternate. There are some rare duck billed platypus type exceptions. For example, theres an alternate leaved dogwood.
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