Oak, likely in the red oak group due to pointed leaf tips. Any photo of the tree itself?

Oh. The tree itself. It's dieing. The top is all covered with poison ivy. There's no life left up there, just a bare trunk, no branches, no leaves, just the vine. Almost all of its bark is gone, top to bottom, and some significant rot is happening all along the trunk.

By some miracle, there are live branches sprouting these leaves on one side, about half way up. I'll try to get a picture of this brave beast so we can marvel at how strongly it wants to live.

Yes, I do think it's an oak.

OK, I got pics of this heroic trooper this morning. Look at the bark. It's gone from most of the trunk. Beetles have bored into the bare wood that's left, and woodpeckers have pecked into their holes. Not many functional body parts are left. I totally admire this oak's effort to hold onto life.

And I hate the poison ivy just on principle. There's a big-diameter hairy vine climbing up this trunk, with poison ivy leaves sprouting up at the very top where the sun shines. My woodland path is near the tree. I can now see how much poison ivy is growing everywhere around this tree. I have to get rid of it, as my husband is highly allergic to it. He walks this path through the woods, which I have recently cut, daily.

People will give you good advice on various methods of poison ivy control, including painting with herbicides, but my first attack would be to simply cut a two foot section out of the vine near the bottom and throw that section on the ground. Be sure to use disposable gloves and wash your hands and the pruner/knife well to remove the urushiol.

Don't try to pull the vine off the tree! Just let it die off because you've cut out its lifeline.

You can use the same attack on nearby poison ivy - cut the stems and you've bought some time to consider further action. Sometimes repeated cutting will stop the poison ivy from growing and it avoids your having to use chemicals that have their own problems.

I've done this with poison ivy vines climbing up an oak and the oak is doing OK.

Good luck,

Claire