Experts across the country say that the highest pollen counts they've seen in a decade are being recorded:
"I looked at the total pollen counts for this season compared to last, and, at this point, we have already reached 80-90 percent of what we saw for the entire season last year," said Albany, N.Y.-based allergy specialist Dr. David Shulan, a spokesman for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI).
The culprit has been a mild, wet winter and early spring, plus unusually warm days.
Not exactly.
It seems that the plant population in the U.S. is experiencing the same problem that humans have in China: Too many males.
During the building boom around the nation the last decade, landscape designers and contractors planted more male plants and fewer female plants:
...[M]ale plants have been popular because they don't produce messy fruit or seed pods -- but they are responsible for most of the pollen in the air. It's better to plant females or plants with both male and female parts, Ogren says, since the pollen doesn't spread as much.
Filed under: allergies, asthma, suburban sprawl, environment, male plants
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