Link: Botanical sexism leads to allergies

[sonia]

Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies by Thomas Leo Ogren. Fascinating article about how the preference for pollen-producing male trees as street trees has led to an epidemic of pollen production and thus an epidemic of allergies.

Arborists often claim that all-male plants are “litter-free” because they shed no messy seeds, fruits or pods.

Not satisfied with just the trees, the commercial growers then produced a flood of all-male shrubs, junipers, yew pines, fern pines, wax myrtles, alpine currants, plum yews, yews and more. In the past few years we’ve even seen all-male hanging basket plants like begonias. The problem is that while these trees and plants are “litter-free”, they all produce abundant allergenic pollen.

Prior to the 1970s there was only limited demand for new street trees, since almost every street in America seemed to be lined with those big, grand, long-lived stately American elm trees. But then Dutch elm disease struck and suddenly millions of our city trees started to die. By the mid-1980s many millions of elms had died and many streets were suddenly treeless. Enter the new modern, university-recommended trees: the clonal males. In short order millions of these wind-pollinated trees were grown, sold and planted to replace the old insect-pollinated elms.

via conuly

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Wow.

And yes we are suffering for it in the Midwest, where the old trees were all clear-cut, and the new ones subject to this prejudice.

Thanks to the late snow, every tree in town is pollinating *now*. I think they've had to double the tissue orders.

[sonia]

Oy. Best wishes to all the sufferers! My eyes were itchy for a couple of weeks this year, and I haven't had that problem before.