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.
