Catkins, the wormlike male flowers from an oak tree, blanket the ground. They fall after releasing their pollen. Photo by BILL FEIG.
From the Advocate:
Local allergists are theorizing that the bitter cold winter here has triggered an especially intense pollen season this year — and unpleasant symptoms for allergy sufferers.
“This year has been one of the worse seasons I’ve ever seen,” said allergist Dr. James M. Kidd III.
He’s been in practice for 28 years.
Kidd said that he did his medical training in Wisconsin, a place with distinct seasons, and he would see a surge in the spring pollen there, following heavy winters.
“We had a very cold winter” here, Kidd said.
In this area, trees actually start pollinating in late January, he said, but the heaviest tree pollen falls between March 15 and March 31, he said.
“Patients oftentimes will have a lag time and won’t see symptoms until several weeks later,” he said.
Louisiana trees with a high pollen count — a measure of how many pollen spores are prevalent per cubic meter of air — are the oak and the cypress, Kidd said.
We have both cypress and oak trees in our yard. The catkins were all over, covering great swaths of the driveway. The pictures below were taken after the initial clean-up. The yellow pollen from the flowers lands and clings to everything outside, plants, garden furniture, etc. The powder-like pollen even sticks to the window panes.
Grandpère and I both had a bout of either a spring cold or allergies a few weeks ago, that had us frequently sneezing with runny noses. The pollen could have been the culprit.
The flowers look like little brown caterpillars once they fall. I'd never thought much about them before this year's plague. I knew that the catkins were flowers from our oak trees, but I never knew their name until I read the article in the Advocate a few days ago.
Just looking at the pics makes my nose itch!
ReplyDeleteStill, I love the spring (tho not so much as the fall...)
I remember when I was a kid, that walking on piles of fallen catkins felt like walking on a soft carpet.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if our other oaks are males. Their flowers fall on the lawn, so I don't pay much attention to them.
ReplyDeleteLater in the summer, we'll have little oak trees sprouting up all over the yard. Their roots grow deep quickly, which makes them difficult to pull up.
I literally thought I had flu, then thought I had strep, then thought I had mono. My throat and nose are on fire - and that's with Zyrtec. That's why I've been so freakin' irritable and aggressive the past few weeks, but didn't make excuses because I thought it was just me.
ReplyDeleteHere the yellow scourge is pine pollen. Bradford pear is on the leading edge, but when the pines go at it everything gets coated--cars, sidewalks, porches, and nasal passages. To make matters worse, my cats love to take dust baths in the stuff and then come in and get in my lap--achoo! A really good pouring rain cleans it up and you can see rivers of the stuff pouring down the storm drains. Most of us are now praying for just such a rain.
ReplyDeleteMark, I'm sorry you feel so bad, but I won't deny that I'm a bit relieved that there are a few miles between us right at this particular time.
ReplyDeleteBreaking news! I believe that one of our oak trees is a girl!
Boocat, we need a good rain around here for more reasons than pollen.
ReplyDeleteI love looking at the live oaks, but I do not love living with them! One house we lived in was in the midst of a grove of gorgeous huge old live oaks. But for about 6 months of the year they created a huge mess. Acorns dropped through the winter. Next, in early spring the leaves dropped, requiring a minimum of 40 large bags to clean them up. And that was closely followed by the catkins that piled up at least an inch deep all over the yard.
ReplyDeleteMike, we have only three, and I love our oaks. I'm willing to put up with the inconvenience to have the trees in our yard. I don't know about an entire grove. That could be too much.
ReplyDelete