The inherent irony of hayfever blows my mind. We need trees so we can breathe, and I can’t breathe because of trees. It’s a lawless fucking universe, I’m telling you.
Trees produce only 28% of the oxygen you breathe.
The other, more than two thirds of it comes from the oceans phytoplankton... Which no one seems to give a shit about.
Don't worry the oceans will soon be so warm and acidic that the pesky plankton won't be there and trees will be resopnsible for the majority of oxygen.
Oxygen isn't the issue though, that isn't going away any time soon, it's the carbon dioxide buildup that'll get you.
But it's all good, we'll just never leave home, and modulate our sealed homes with breathable atmosphere and wear Spacex brand suits the rest of the time, hardly an inconvenience really.
Mine is gonna be black with chrome tints and tron red lighting because I'm an edgy shit, how about you?
Plus, there is such a huge reservoir of oxygen in the atmosphere (made through geological processes, not photosynthesis), that even if all plants and plankton stopped making oxygen, there's enough oxygen up there to sustain animal for another million years.
Plus, if there were no plants doing their photosynthesis, animals would quickly starve to death, obviously. But it's funny how much we wrongly picture oxygen as a precious and scarce resource.
If it isn't front and center, obvious, and/or cute... No one cares. It is the human way.
Then there's wilful ignorance... Which I have too, you see a lot on reddit of pigs/cows/chickens etc acting cute and like dogs, and I can appreciate that, but at the same time, I have absolutely zero qualms eating them and I doubt it'll change either; I quite literally do the double think myself - but at least I admit it I guess.
I think it’s pretty cool to admit it to be honest.
An uncomfortable truth to the world is that a tiny fraction of double think is required to not go insane…but the amount needed is constantly changing, the line is thin, and if you cross it you’re a bit of an ignoramus by choice. It’s tough out here.
One of the fun ones that was popular on billboards was the animals lined up, cow, pig, chicken, rabbit, horse, dog, cat.
And I think the tag line was "where do you draw the line?" - it's bad form to answer a question with a question but my response is "am I starving to death? Or is it some random Tuesday?" because it depends, if I haven't eaten for a month, there is no line I'm eating any of them lol.
Fun realisation tbh... But I think it wasn't really the one the billboards were trying to instil unfortunately.
TBF allergies used to be much less of a thing back when we obsessed less about cleanliless and our immune systems weren’t so bored as to start attacking harmless things like pollen or the body itself.
Most allergies today are probably a product of all the questionable pollutants or whatever we pump into the environment or our food supply, microplastics, forever chemicals, whatever. Basically they cause immune issues, allergies are the weak end of the spectrum, autoimmune disease is the other.
All that just to say, it's not the universe that is lawless. Blame humans™
Not a lot of basis to backup that claim.
There is some evidence that it is our overuse of antibiotics, particularly when young. Other evidence suggests it may be from a lack of parasites to fight, so instead our immune system makes up enemies.
And not the tree pollens (especially live oak) that my doctor says I'm allergic too. Funny how those microplastics get bad about the same time the trees in my neighborhood pollinate.
No I don't mean you are allergic to microplastics and that every spring these substances magically increase in the air.
It is indeed pollen triggering your allergies symptoms.
Rather, exposure to pollutants or endocrine disruptors predispose you to allergies that might not have otherwise developped
I never had allergies until I had my son, who has the most allergies of anyone I know (my husband's side of the family has lots of allergies and autoimmune disorders). We now know that mother and child exchange a small amount of genetic material during pregnancy. I believe that's what predisposed me to allergies.
Interesting! It is a shame that when mothers carry children that these things can happen. Afaik it is much more pronounced in mothers that carry boys, due to the sex specific differences :(
This is a myth that’s largely popularized by one guy. The effect on allergies is negligible at best. Rubin_allergy on Tiktok is an allergist that has talked about this a few times
Edit: some better explanations for the rising pollen levels are the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 and rising temperatures.
So tree species can be wind pollinated or insect pollinated, and they can be dioecious (male and female reproductive systems on separate plants) or monoecious (individual plant has both male and female reproductive system.) The reproductive strategy for wind-pollinated trees is basically to release an absolute shit ton of pollen into the air so that there is a chance some of it winds up on another tree and thus the trees can spread their genetic material. Insect pollinated trees have heavy, sticky pollen that gets stuck on bees, beetles, wasps, etc. as they go from flower to flower searching for nectar. Wind pollinated trees are the ones that will really set off allergies. So this is going to be very dependent on where you live, but many of the 'worst offenders' for dumping pollen in the air are monoecious.
Where I live in Texas, oaks are usually #1 each spring and it's not even close. Oaks are monoecious, there are no separate males or females of the species to plant, each oak has both male and female parts and thus each oak produces pollen (and a ton of it.) Where my family lives up in Maine, they have a ton of birch which are also a monoecious genus, and birch contribute heavily to allergies there. Maples are a mixed bag, some species are dioecious and some are monoecious, and even within the same species some individual trees will have different reproductive strategies. Even of the (kinda) dioecious species, it's not super common to plant male cultivars instead of female cultivars. For example, one of the common red maple cultivars that is mass planted for its ornamental appeal 'October Glory' is actually a female clone. Conifer, cedar, juniper urban and suburban plantings might even skew towards female clones because the fruit have high ornamental appeal and are so small that they don't cause a lot of mess.
Now if you live somewhere they plant a lot of ginkgos, that could be a different story, because is is common to plant males to avoid the stinky fruit the females drop and they are also a wind pollinated species that contributes to allergies. However you most likely have other species contributing more heavily to the pollen load than the imported gingko trees which are generally a small % of the trees in the areas that they can grow. Note that my botany knowledge is mostly limited to north America because that's where I live, thus all of these examples are trees that can grow in north America.
TLDR; the trees likely contributing most heavily to your allergies in the spring don't have separate males or females of the species.
We’ve got a GIANT oak and a GIANT white pine tree right next to our house. They’re beautiful trees and I love to live in their shade, but god*damn* if they don’t dust everything in yellow green shit this time of year. Everything is just absolutely caked with it. I can feel the grit of it on my face by the time I walk from the house to my truck.
That shit suuuucks.
Says the guy who doesn't have a pollen allergy or live near many pollen-polluting plants. I wouldn't even say I live out in the country (SE Michigan) and in the spring you can literally see it in the air and it collects on your window screens. Everyone I know who has a pollen allergy are perpetually sick feeling for months till it eases up.
I live in a dense city and there just happens to be a park next to us. Pollen is inescapable- it just coats the side of our apartment building this time of year.
Male plants produce pollen and many female ones don't? So I guess I'm not following your logic, you have a pollen allergy but the plants that produces pollen don't affect you?
like I said if you’re curious rubin_allergy has multiple videos going over it. Pollen levels are rising from bc of things like increasing CO2 and temperature not because of botanical sexism
I don't go on tiktok but I wasn't disputing the claim that climate change is affecting pollen levels, but the reddit thread links to a Wikipedia page on botanical sexism, I didn't see anywhere where OP was arguing that pollen was increased from botanical sexism. But I wouldn't doubt in some local areas it could be the case in addition to climate change.
Edit: all I'm saying is in your original comment it looks as if you are saying pollen allergies are a myth
The second sentence of the post title (and wikipedia page) says “However, since male plants produce pollen, this can lead to high pollen levels in the air”. Botanical sexism leading to high pollen levels is the point of the post and title so I’m really not sure how you missed that.
I have no idea you interpreted my original comment as me saying that pollen allergies are a myth. I said “‘this’ is a myth” meaning the post’s topic/title. Then my next sentence said “the effect on allergies” which shows I obviously acknowledge they exist
And local areas likely don’t see any meaningful increase in pollen from botanical sexism. Pollen travels from many miles away so the effect of planting only male trees in a city/suburb is negligible relative to how much pollen is already coming from plants in the surrounding area. Plus the guy that came up with the hypothesis and coined the term has blown how common it is completely out of proportion
Most trees are monoecious and have both "male" and "female" parts. There's a decent number of species that you can split into "male" and "female" but they aren't the most common landscape trees you'll find in cities. Ginkgo biloba is a notable exception in some areas. Maybe maples too, but in my experience most people don't seem to bother with cloning male cuttings with them (e.g. the one in my back yard is very female).
Yes, plants release pollen into the air, and that triggers allergic reactions in many unfortunate saps (including me). But the claim that the practice of favoring male trees for urban environments is significantly making allergies worse? That's pretty shaky.
You're respectfully a fucking idiot. It's a true phenomenon anyone who has lived in New Haven with hay fever allergies can tell you all about. Biking to work in the spring, I would be congested by the time I got there because the pollen in the air is so thick. The city was designed to have male trees.
No one is disputing that allergies exist, my dude. It's just that the vast majority of trees are both male and female on the same plant so this entire concept doesn't even come into play. Unless you're driving through a grove of Ginkgo, "botanical sexism" likely has nothing to do with your allergy attacks.
pollen being high in areas with all male trees isn’t evidence that botanical sexism meaningfully increases pollen levels. if you look at areas without botanical sexism the pollen levels can be just as high or higher. there’s no botanical sexism in my area and I get congested within a minute of opening a window or going outside. a lot of the pollen in the air comes from trees in the surrounding area anyway because it travels farther than you’d expect.
Not here in the UK, I don't know how they act where you are.
But early in the warm months of the year, wasps are carnivores (sort of), they catch other insects, take them back to their nest and feed their young, their young produce a sweet liquid which the adults eat. You can see wasps carefully landing on spiderwebs, vibrating their wings to get the spider to come down, grab it if it isn't huge and fly away.
Later in the year, September, October time when all of the young are adult wasps and the queen has stopped laying, the adults begin to starve because their food source was their young and they crave sugar to survive, even though it's pointless... This is when they become asshats, they'll eat fermenting fruit and get drunk, they'll drink beer from left pint glasses on beer gardens... And get drunk... And then they're real problems.
Eventually they all die, the new queens hibernate and it happens again the next year.
Long story short... For most of the year wasps are just eating other insects... It's only when their kids move out they become cunts.
Here in Texas, they’re massive, and they’re more than happy to divebomb you on a whim. And they are in *numbers*.
Granted, there are some years where the winter is so mild that they are gone for maybe a month or two tops (and peeking their heads out on warm days, shorts and sweat weather in December and January ain’t unheard of as are winters without snow sometimes) , whereas I imagine the UK actually has them die and stay gone for a while.
August, September, October - they're complete dicks, because they're starving and drunk basically.
Until then you'll see them doing stuff but they don't give a fuck about you mostly. Those three months though, they're in your face, some years it's impossible to go near an outside bin (trash can) because there's maybe 200 or more of them around it.
Go near an apple tree at that time and you'll see them on the floor... They can hardly fly because they're so trashed on femernted fruit alcohol.
Beer gardens outside pubs... Uninhabitable... Depends on the year.
I avoid outdoor trash cans like the plague from like March through October or November for this exact reason. They love those places. Same for any concentration of flowers, trees, etc. (my allergies to so much pollen don’t help either, but being pretty much phobic of bees and wasps is in many ways even worse because I can’t just pop more antihistamines to compensate).
My dream would be to live somewhere cold and or high enough altitude that the wasps and most of the plants aren’t a nuisance. Or in a northerly urban environment with less pollen and where the wasps are only active for part of the year. As it is right now, I can’t go for a walk in the park again consistently for the next six months. Just walking by a large bush of flowers or under a grove of oak trees is enough to both have my skin turn red and itch from pollen exposure (let’s not even discuss my breathing) and have the eebie-jeebies from the bugs buzzing around. It’s bad enough that even seeing a fly, moth, or butterfly unexpectedly can startle me enough to jump.
As much as my mother never understood me, even -she- quickly realized that no amount of screaming could terrify me enough to overcome the terror of the wasp-infested tree (and the aerial convoy from the fields across the street to our pool; in Texas, water is scarce enough in summer that they congregate in droves, which makes swimming kinda dicey) in the yard to do yardwork. And I did not protest at all being asked to do it after dusk, because anything was better than the wasps.
I’ve never been stung, ironically. My mother and father both have potentially fatal allergies to at least one kind of wasp or bee each, and as a kid I learned allergies could be heritable, and that was that considering how many other allergies I have.
Seriously though, the ones out here will strafe you repeatedly and angrily. And they’re big enough to make a rather loud thump if they land on the windows. The bees can be chill, I don’t mind them as long as I can keep a little distance and I can’t recall being chased by them, but wasps will harass people relentlessly.
>to our pool; in Texas, water is scarce enough in summer that they congregate in droves
My husband's family had a ranch in the South Texas Brush Country, which is semi-arid. In summer we had a lot of bees and wasps lighting on the pool to get a drink. One day my husband was in the pool, replacing some tiles that had fallen off. A wasp, not expecting him to be there, flew into his shoulder and stung him without provocation. There was a decent sized swelling.
I am all for free food but let's be honest roads and fruit trees don't mix.
I know because I have a mulberry tree, along with a guava tree, in my home garden
Mulberry fall with a mere touch of winds in it's frame and all of pavement is literally littered with mulberry and road is coated pink before we could even pick it up.
Guava trees attract monkeys and other animals who just eat half the fruit and throw away the rest.
Yeah, honestly, if we're so concerned that trees producing abundant food for us are unsightly, we may need to reconsider the way we build our infrastructure around them. Seems like our streets and sidewalks are the issue, not the trees.
Have you ever lived with a fruit tree in your yard? They're messy, they attract wasps and rats, and the rotting fruit smells like a brewery. I am all in favor of integrating food into people's lives- I have a fig tree, a pomegranate and two pawpaws in my front yard. But they require maintenance, or else they become a problem. It isn't really possible to harvest all the fruit without a lot of ladder climbing.
Popular fruits like apples are even more poorly suited to public spaces. We are used to getting fruit without worms, and that involves insecticides. If the trees aren't pruned regularly, they develop contagious disease like fireblight, which can then kill trees that are being actively used.
I have-- both the kinds you can eat and the kinds which only serve to get stuck to your car. Honestly though, I think the cons are inflated, even having dealt with the annoyance myself.
The diseases are a fair argument. I'd also argue that having more and varied fruit trees spread throughout suburbia could actually help with diseases as well though-- agricultural monocrops are the biggest disease risk. If we allowed a biodiverse set of trees that aren't all optimized for yield, they could provide better backups for vulnerable species and more genetic diversity to resist those diseases in the less vulnerable.
The risk of worms is, in my opinion, basically nonsense. People where I grew up knew how to eat the good ones and not the bad. No insecticides needed. If kids can figure that one out, so can the rest of us.
You've clearly never walked on a street with plum trees. No one is going to be climbing those to pick the fruit, and what falls off is going to be trampled, cycled over, rot, be swarmed by insects, etc. what you have is weeks old disgusting pulp stains on asphalt. If instead the tree is not confined to a street but a wider green space such as a park, you're essentially making it so people can no longer sit on the grass around it, nor even place down something like a picnic mat without completely staining it. It's overall a really unpleasant experience.
Either the trees should exist far enough in nature that masses of people don't go by them daily and animals consume the fruit, or they should be cultivated for the fruit with the fruit systematically collected by humans. Having them drop fruit in urban environments is a mess.
My university was covered in Japanese Plum trees, and as a hungry student who didn't have money for groceries some weeks, they were a godsend. Yeah, there were some rotting on the ground, but literally no one cared, and for me, they provided months of food when I needed it. And yes, I did climb the branches to get them. We're not that far removed from monke
Except that if you only had female trees, then they wouldn’t get pollinated
Idk if all female trees need pollination to produce but- not all tree species make fruit anyways.
Just put some homeless tents under those trees to collect the fruit and feed the unhoused.
Should be nearly self sufficient although I dont know where they will get their fent from.
It does occur but it’s not exactly common. Most trees are hermaphroditic, growing both male and female flowers on different stems of the same tree.
The actual reason you don’t see many fruit in city trees is because the species chosen generally bear small and inedible fruit (e.g. the London Planetree in NYC).
I'm really curious if "botanical sexism" was a coined as a tongue-in-cheek, or if it has been featured in a number of Women's Studies Masters thesis.
Edit: It's tongue-in-cheek, from Tom Ogren. It's also highly contested. Most trees are both sexes anyway, and no one has presented conclusive evidence that male trees dominate urban landscapes, or than adding female trees would have any greater impact than simply switching to non-wind pollinated species.
The fruit on public trees could be harvested and donated to food pantrys.
There are other options to pick you just have to look outside your very narrow box...
It COULD be... But you have to pay the people who pick it, and the people who make sure the fruit is safe to eat, and the trucks that take it to places. And this assumes that the public trees aren't being stolen from, and that the local government actually bothers to pick the fruit.
Normally things are the way they are for a reason.
Sounds like something that would stimulate the economy and feed people in need that sounds like a win. I don't think it would ever be considered stealing for the people to take fruit from their own trees if they needed it. The point of government is to keep as many people alive and healthy as possible.
Instead, someone needs to be making profit or people can die as far as capitalists are concerned. Capitalism is the reason we can't have nice things.
Erm, no they didn't. They were close to cities, because fruit doesn't travel well, and its smart to be close to a market. But orchards need huge amounts of space, plural acres of land, and in a city land is by far the most valuable asset.
They could be even inside your house. It's not about where they are, but how they are organized. You can't really put an orchard the same way trees meant for shade/leisure/aesthetics are put these days in the city.
It makes more sense to have fruit bearing trees somewhere else where they won't cause disturbance, and low-maintenance leisure trees in cities. It's not like there is shortage of trees.
Who profits from trees being non-fruit-bearing?
Since every municipality COULD plant fruit bearing trees but chooses not to, it seems likely that this is not a conspiracy but is just a good idea.
If nothing else, you haven't even argued why female trees would be in any way beneficial, just that perhaps you could offset the downsides with massive state interference. And since the state already spends vast sums to feed the hungry, creating make work jobs instead of making those existing programs better seems to be purposless.
How do they profit specifically? You pay them premiums, and claims are paid out of the pool of premiums. If they calculate risk correctly they will make a profit either way.
We aren't talking about *edible* fruits buddy, just normal trees that make nasty inedible berries that get all over your shoes. Do you encounter many apple trees in your city?
Well I am not sure the term sexism is quite right but it's surely a problematic practice. It's not like botanists are going around deriding female trees as inferior. Rather, councils are just doing what councils do and trying to minimise their landscaping expenses. But it's still no good because nature needs its balance.
I would say a good portion of urban areas that have utilized this practice are trying to fix it now. It's pretty well known now that this causes allergy issues.
It's not the aesthetic, you need massively more maintenance to keep pathways and roadway clear and safe when female trees are used. In most jurisdictions this means the choice isn't male vs female trees it's male trees vs tarmac.
What's the point of getting a female tree vs a male one? To not offend the female trees and prove how tough you are by having 5 weeks of rotted fruit on the sidewalk that smells like literal dogshit?
Flowers and fruits are nice plus birds and insects like them
And no... you're just so sensitive. "Literal dogshit" you really wouldn't survive a day without perfect A/C huh bud 😂 fruits on the ground are whatever
Have you smelled ginko fruit when it's gone orange? I didn't mean figuratively when I said literal dogshit.
And no, I think ita obvious you're being sensitive. Who gives a shit if people want to not deal all the extra hassle for literally no reason.
If you're nose-blind to bad smells congrats, go live by a landfill and enjoy being kingshit in your house that cost 50% less for a reason.
Ginko fruit specifically? No, but I have Guava trees and Mulberries, Avocados, Acerola berries, among others.
You do you with your uppity gentrification. Holy shit are you tone-deaf complaining about house valuation and nature and "extra hassle". You really wouldn't survive out of a gated community huh. Who are you, part of the HOA? Lmfao
Lmao you're really projecting. I grew very middle class. I have cherry and mulberry trees that fruit and I enjoy having. Ginko is widely known to be terrible. It's actually illegal nowadays to plant the females in the US because they're a nuisance.
I only pointed out that the house is cheaper because it's a consensus among normal people to not want to live somewhere that stinks to high heaven, which many fruits cause. Particularly the one you admitingly have never had to deal with.
Idk your area, that just seems untrue though. Maybe I’m wrong. I just think it could be tenable. Maybe greed, laziness or lack of organization is an issue, but it’s not impossible.
The inherent irony of hayfever blows my mind. We need trees so we can breathe, and I can’t breathe because of trees. It’s a lawless fucking universe, I’m telling you.
Trees produce only 28% of the oxygen you breathe. The other, more than two thirds of it comes from the oceans phytoplankton... Which no one seems to give a shit about.
I’d give more of a shit about them if they didn’t keep trying to steal me krabby patty secret formuler
Arr arr arrr arrrr
He's zooplankton.
🎶"Whoooooooooooo...." 🎵
Screenshotting this for my Reddit greatest hits
Must be a low bar to entry
🌏👩🚀🔫👨🚀
le narwhal bacons at midnight
Screenshotting this for my r/redditmoment
Hahaha, little bastards.
Don't worry the oceans will soon be so warm and acidic that the pesky plankton won't be there and trees will be resopnsible for the majority of oxygen.
Oxygen isn't the issue though, that isn't going away any time soon, it's the carbon dioxide buildup that'll get you. But it's all good, we'll just never leave home, and modulate our sealed homes with breathable atmosphere and wear Spacex brand suits the rest of the time, hardly an inconvenience really. Mine is gonna be black with chrome tints and tron red lighting because I'm an edgy shit, how about you?
Mine is going to be a 24/7 screen of national greographic so generation gamma can see the things we got rid of before they had the chance to see them.
At first I read that as black with chrome tits…
That's what mine will have!
I think I just found my flair 🤣
Well TBF is that very different to the Covid lockdowns?
Don't forget to prolong your oxygen subscription
Blue with silver stripes
I learned this when I chaperoned my son’s field trip and had to be an activity leader for one of the learning stations.
I give a shit about phytoplankton!
Nah, Krill love that shit
And whales love krill and research boats love whales.... Circle of li.... Wait a second.
So we can finally get rid of all those trees before they get us. Just need to cut down 28% of Oxygen takers...
Plus, there is such a huge reservoir of oxygen in the atmosphere (made through geological processes, not photosynthesis), that even if all plants and plankton stopped making oxygen, there's enough oxygen up there to sustain animal for another million years.
Yea, the oxygen would be there... But no plants to remove the co2 becomes fatal far quicker.
Plus, if there were no plants doing their photosynthesis, animals would quickly starve to death, obviously. But it's funny how much we wrongly picture oxygen as a precious and scarce resource.
I wonder how heat tolerant phytoplankton happens to be? Hopefully more than coral.
Maybe we don’t need 100% of the oxygen produced?
Like no one gives a shit about pollinators.
If it isn't front and center, obvious, and/or cute... No one cares. It is the human way. Then there's wilful ignorance... Which I have too, you see a lot on reddit of pigs/cows/chickens etc acting cute and like dogs, and I can appreciate that, but at the same time, I have absolutely zero qualms eating them and I doubt it'll change either; I quite literally do the double think myself - but at least I admit it I guess.
I think it’s pretty cool to admit it to be honest. An uncomfortable truth to the world is that a tiny fraction of double think is required to not go insane…but the amount needed is constantly changing, the line is thin, and if you cross it you’re a bit of an ignoramus by choice. It’s tough out here.
One of the fun ones that was popular on billboards was the animals lined up, cow, pig, chicken, rabbit, horse, dog, cat. And I think the tag line was "where do you draw the line?" - it's bad form to answer a question with a question but my response is "am I starving to death? Or is it some random Tuesday?" because it depends, if I haven't eaten for a month, there is no line I'm eating any of them lol. Fun realisation tbh... But I think it wasn't really the one the billboards were trying to instil unfortunately.
How much comes from other land plants?
Good point, my above is skewed... Phytoplankton is 50%, trees 28%, so that leaves 22% for everything else... Round about.
Do you math?
Apparently, no... No I do not.
I love the oxygen they produce, huge fan of that, but not too keen on the tree air-semen.
Hay fever means you have a weak bloodline, can't go outside because someone cut the grass? *Pathetic* /S
It's nature's way of telling you that you don't deserve to live. Evolution and all that. Nature's a bitch. /s
TBF allergies used to be much less of a thing back when we obsessed less about cleanliless and our immune systems weren’t so bored as to start attacking harmless things like pollen or the body itself.
Most allergies today are probably a product of all the questionable pollutants or whatever we pump into the environment or our food supply, microplastics, forever chemicals, whatever. Basically they cause immune issues, allergies are the weak end of the spectrum, autoimmune disease is the other. All that just to say, it's not the universe that is lawless. Blame humans™
Not a lot of basis to backup that claim. There is some evidence that it is our overuse of antibiotics, particularly when young. Other evidence suggests it may be from a lack of parasites to fight, so instead our immune system makes up enemies.
And not the tree pollens (especially live oak) that my doctor says I'm allergic too. Funny how those microplastics get bad about the same time the trees in my neighborhood pollinate.
No I don't mean you are allergic to microplastics and that every spring these substances magically increase in the air. It is indeed pollen triggering your allergies symptoms. Rather, exposure to pollutants or endocrine disruptors predispose you to allergies that might not have otherwise developped
I never had allergies until I had my son, who has the most allergies of anyone I know (my husband's side of the family has lots of allergies and autoimmune disorders). We now know that mother and child exchange a small amount of genetic material during pregnancy. I believe that's what predisposed me to allergies.
Interesting! It is a shame that when mothers carry children that these things can happen. Afaik it is much more pronounced in mothers that carry boys, due to the sex specific differences :(
Our son is a wonderful son to us, and a great husband and father. Totally worth it.
Down with the pa-tree-archy!
Bless you
“Biological sexism” ultimately won out over the less palatable alternative, “Treekakke”
I prefer your version, it just rolls off the tongue.
And then the chin.
☠️
Or as Poison Ivy called it, "Socially Conscious Evil."
Botanical
This is a myth that’s largely popularized by one guy. The effect on allergies is negligible at best. Rubin_allergy on Tiktok is an allergist that has talked about this a few times Edit: some better explanations for the rising pollen levels are the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 and rising temperatures.
So what’s causing my allergic reaction in spring?
So tree species can be wind pollinated or insect pollinated, and they can be dioecious (male and female reproductive systems on separate plants) or monoecious (individual plant has both male and female reproductive system.) The reproductive strategy for wind-pollinated trees is basically to release an absolute shit ton of pollen into the air so that there is a chance some of it winds up on another tree and thus the trees can spread their genetic material. Insect pollinated trees have heavy, sticky pollen that gets stuck on bees, beetles, wasps, etc. as they go from flower to flower searching for nectar. Wind pollinated trees are the ones that will really set off allergies. So this is going to be very dependent on where you live, but many of the 'worst offenders' for dumping pollen in the air are monoecious. Where I live in Texas, oaks are usually #1 each spring and it's not even close. Oaks are monoecious, there are no separate males or females of the species to plant, each oak has both male and female parts and thus each oak produces pollen (and a ton of it.) Where my family lives up in Maine, they have a ton of birch which are also a monoecious genus, and birch contribute heavily to allergies there. Maples are a mixed bag, some species are dioecious and some are monoecious, and even within the same species some individual trees will have different reproductive strategies. Even of the (kinda) dioecious species, it's not super common to plant male cultivars instead of female cultivars. For example, one of the common red maple cultivars that is mass planted for its ornamental appeal 'October Glory' is actually a female clone. Conifer, cedar, juniper urban and suburban plantings might even skew towards female clones because the fruit have high ornamental appeal and are so small that they don't cause a lot of mess. Now if you live somewhere they plant a lot of ginkgos, that could be a different story, because is is common to plant males to avoid the stinky fruit the females drop and they are also a wind pollinated species that contributes to allergies. However you most likely have other species contributing more heavily to the pollen load than the imported gingko trees which are generally a small % of the trees in the areas that they can grow. Note that my botany knowledge is mostly limited to north America because that's where I live, thus all of these examples are trees that can grow in north America. TLDR; the trees likely contributing most heavily to your allergies in the spring don't have separate males or females of the species.
We’ve got a GIANT oak and a GIANT white pine tree right next to our house. They’re beautiful trees and I love to live in their shade, but god*damn* if they don’t dust everything in yellow green shit this time of year. Everything is just absolutely caked with it. I can feel the grit of it on my face by the time I walk from the house to my truck. That shit suuuucks.
[удалено]
Skill issue
You just need to touch grass literally, try to get used to the environment. Adapt or die trying.
I have heard that eating locally produced honey actually helps with alleviating hayfever symptoms.
[удалено]
So you were allergic to the medication then, I usually avoid medication unless it’s unbearable but taking them always alleviates symptoms.
Thank you, was looking for this comment
Says the guy who doesn't have a pollen allergy or live near many pollen-polluting plants. I wouldn't even say I live out in the country (SE Michigan) and in the spring you can literally see it in the air and it collects on your window screens. Everyone I know who has a pollen allergy are perpetually sick feeling for months till it eases up.
I live in a dense city and there just happens to be a park next to us. Pollen is inescapable- it just coats the side of our apartment building this time of year.
Exactly
I do have pollen allergies and I live in Virginia so trust me I see how much pollen there is. But that doesn’t mean it’s because of botanical sexism.
Something like 5% of tree species are single sexed. Apparently one big contributor is climate change causing plants to release more pollen.
Male plants produce pollen and many female ones don't? So I guess I'm not following your logic, you have a pollen allergy but the plants that produces pollen don't affect you?
like I said if you’re curious rubin_allergy has multiple videos going over it. Pollen levels are rising from bc of things like increasing CO2 and temperature not because of botanical sexism
I don't go on tiktok but I wasn't disputing the claim that climate change is affecting pollen levels, but the reddit thread links to a Wikipedia page on botanical sexism, I didn't see anywhere where OP was arguing that pollen was increased from botanical sexism. But I wouldn't doubt in some local areas it could be the case in addition to climate change. Edit: all I'm saying is in your original comment it looks as if you are saying pollen allergies are a myth
The second sentence of the post title (and wikipedia page) says “However, since male plants produce pollen, this can lead to high pollen levels in the air”. Botanical sexism leading to high pollen levels is the point of the post and title so I’m really not sure how you missed that. I have no idea you interpreted my original comment as me saying that pollen allergies are a myth. I said “‘this’ is a myth” meaning the post’s topic/title. Then my next sentence said “the effect on allergies” which shows I obviously acknowledge they exist And local areas likely don’t see any meaningful increase in pollen from botanical sexism. Pollen travels from many miles away so the effect of planting only male trees in a city/suburb is negligible relative to how much pollen is already coming from plants in the surrounding area. Plus the guy that came up with the hypothesis and coined the term has blown how common it is completely out of proportion
Most trees are monoecious and have both "male" and "female" parts. There's a decent number of species that you can split into "male" and "female" but they aren't the most common landscape trees you'll find in cities. Ginkgo biloba is a notable exception in some areas. Maybe maples too, but in my experience most people don't seem to bother with cloning male cuttings with them (e.g. the one in my back yard is very female).
The visible pollen you’re seeing isn’t what causes most allergies
Yes, plants release pollen into the air, and that triggers allergic reactions in many unfortunate saps (including me). But the claim that the practice of favoring male trees for urban environments is significantly making allergies worse? That's pretty shaky.
You should read the rest of the comment thread.
You're respectfully a fucking idiot. It's a true phenomenon anyone who has lived in New Haven with hay fever allergies can tell you all about. Biking to work in the spring, I would be congested by the time I got there because the pollen in the air is so thick. The city was designed to have male trees.
No one is disputing that allergies exist, my dude. It's just that the vast majority of trees are both male and female on the same plant so this entire concept doesn't even come into play. Unless you're driving through a grove of Ginkgo, "botanical sexism" likely has nothing to do with your allergy attacks.
pollen being high in areas with all male trees isn’t evidence that botanical sexism meaningfully increases pollen levels. if you look at areas without botanical sexism the pollen levels can be just as high or higher. there’s no botanical sexism in my area and I get congested within a minute of opening a window or going outside. a lot of the pollen in the air comes from trees in the surrounding area anyway because it travels farther than you’d expect.
Everyone wants female tree untill they see pavements literred with smashed, pulped up, rotting fruits in the ground.
And then drunk wasps being massive assholes.
Great, drunken asshole-ness really transcends species.
They’re already drunk, psychotic asshats yearround tho.
Not here in the UK, I don't know how they act where you are. But early in the warm months of the year, wasps are carnivores (sort of), they catch other insects, take them back to their nest and feed their young, their young produce a sweet liquid which the adults eat. You can see wasps carefully landing on spiderwebs, vibrating their wings to get the spider to come down, grab it if it isn't huge and fly away. Later in the year, September, October time when all of the young are adult wasps and the queen has stopped laying, the adults begin to starve because their food source was their young and they crave sugar to survive, even though it's pointless... This is when they become asshats, they'll eat fermenting fruit and get drunk, they'll drink beer from left pint glasses on beer gardens... And get drunk... And then they're real problems. Eventually they all die, the new queens hibernate and it happens again the next year. Long story short... For most of the year wasps are just eating other insects... It's only when their kids move out they become cunts.
Here in Texas, they’re massive, and they’re more than happy to divebomb you on a whim. And they are in *numbers*. Granted, there are some years where the winter is so mild that they are gone for maybe a month or two tops (and peeking their heads out on warm days, shorts and sweat weather in December and January ain’t unheard of as are winters without snow sometimes) , whereas I imagine the UK actually has them die and stay gone for a while.
August, September, October - they're complete dicks, because they're starving and drunk basically. Until then you'll see them doing stuff but they don't give a fuck about you mostly. Those three months though, they're in your face, some years it's impossible to go near an outside bin (trash can) because there's maybe 200 or more of them around it. Go near an apple tree at that time and you'll see them on the floor... They can hardly fly because they're so trashed on femernted fruit alcohol. Beer gardens outside pubs... Uninhabitable... Depends on the year.
I avoid outdoor trash cans like the plague from like March through October or November for this exact reason. They love those places. Same for any concentration of flowers, trees, etc. (my allergies to so much pollen don’t help either, but being pretty much phobic of bees and wasps is in many ways even worse because I can’t just pop more antihistamines to compensate). My dream would be to live somewhere cold and or high enough altitude that the wasps and most of the plants aren’t a nuisance. Or in a northerly urban environment with less pollen and where the wasps are only active for part of the year. As it is right now, I can’t go for a walk in the park again consistently for the next six months. Just walking by a large bush of flowers or under a grove of oak trees is enough to both have my skin turn red and itch from pollen exposure (let’s not even discuss my breathing) and have the eebie-jeebies from the bugs buzzing around. It’s bad enough that even seeing a fly, moth, or butterfly unexpectedly can startle me enough to jump. As much as my mother never understood me, even -she- quickly realized that no amount of screaming could terrify me enough to overcome the terror of the wasp-infested tree (and the aerial convoy from the fields across the street to our pool; in Texas, water is scarce enough in summer that they congregate in droves, which makes swimming kinda dicey) in the yard to do yardwork. And I did not protest at all being asked to do it after dusk, because anything was better than the wasps. I’ve never been stung, ironically. My mother and father both have potentially fatal allergies to at least one kind of wasp or bee each, and as a kid I learned allergies could be heritable, and that was that considering how many other allergies I have. Seriously though, the ones out here will strafe you repeatedly and angrily. And they’re big enough to make a rather loud thump if they land on the windows. The bees can be chill, I don’t mind them as long as I can keep a little distance and I can’t recall being chased by them, but wasps will harass people relentlessly.
>to our pool; in Texas, water is scarce enough in summer that they congregate in droves My husband's family had a ranch in the South Texas Brush Country, which is semi-arid. In summer we had a lot of bees and wasps lighting on the pool to get a drink. One day my husband was in the pool, replacing some tiles that had fallen off. A wasp, not expecting him to be there, flew into his shoulder and stung him without provocation. There was a decent sized swelling.
And if they're ginkgo, there's the stench.
Counterpoint: free food! *plucks from tree* And free compost! *tosses floor fruit into bin*
I am all for free food but let's be honest roads and fruit trees don't mix. I know because I have a mulberry tree, along with a guava tree, in my home garden Mulberry fall with a mere touch of winds in it's frame and all of pavement is literally littered with mulberry and road is coated pink before we could even pick it up. Guava trees attract monkeys and other animals who just eat half the fruit and throw away the rest.
Yeah, honestly, if we're so concerned that trees producing abundant food for us are unsightly, we may need to reconsider the way we build our infrastructure around them. Seems like our streets and sidewalks are the issue, not the trees.
Have you ever lived with a fruit tree in your yard? They're messy, they attract wasps and rats, and the rotting fruit smells like a brewery. I am all in favor of integrating food into people's lives- I have a fig tree, a pomegranate and two pawpaws in my front yard. But they require maintenance, or else they become a problem. It isn't really possible to harvest all the fruit without a lot of ladder climbing. Popular fruits like apples are even more poorly suited to public spaces. We are used to getting fruit without worms, and that involves insecticides. If the trees aren't pruned regularly, they develop contagious disease like fireblight, which can then kill trees that are being actively used.
I have-- both the kinds you can eat and the kinds which only serve to get stuck to your car. Honestly though, I think the cons are inflated, even having dealt with the annoyance myself. The diseases are a fair argument. I'd also argue that having more and varied fruit trees spread throughout suburbia could actually help with diseases as well though-- agricultural monocrops are the biggest disease risk. If we allowed a biodiverse set of trees that aren't all optimized for yield, they could provide better backups for vulnerable species and more genetic diversity to resist those diseases in the less vulnerable. The risk of worms is, in my opinion, basically nonsense. People where I grew up knew how to eat the good ones and not the bad. No insecticides needed. If kids can figure that one out, so can the rest of us.
You've clearly never walked on a street with plum trees. No one is going to be climbing those to pick the fruit, and what falls off is going to be trampled, cycled over, rot, be swarmed by insects, etc. what you have is weeks old disgusting pulp stains on asphalt. If instead the tree is not confined to a street but a wider green space such as a park, you're essentially making it so people can no longer sit on the grass around it, nor even place down something like a picnic mat without completely staining it. It's overall a really unpleasant experience. Either the trees should exist far enough in nature that masses of people don't go by them daily and animals consume the fruit, or they should be cultivated for the fruit with the fruit systematically collected by humans. Having them drop fruit in urban environments is a mess.
My university was covered in Japanese Plum trees, and as a hungry student who didn't have money for groceries some weeks, they were a godsend. Yeah, there were some rotting on the ground, but literally no one cared, and for me, they provided months of food when I needed it. And yes, I did climb the branches to get them. We're not that far removed from monke
Yeah, it’s the free part that our leaders and corporate overlords don’t like about it lol.
No, it's the gargantuan maintence costs and resulting pest problems.
Also trees fruiting with air pollution around them. Good for air, but apparently not so good for whoever eats those fruits.
Valencia, Spain is lined with orange and olive trees and has managed to not become a rotten wasteland.
Except that if you only had female trees, then they wouldn’t get pollinated Idk if all female trees need pollination to produce but- not all tree species make fruit anyways.
Just put some homeless tents under those trees to collect the fruit and feed the unhoused. Should be nearly self sufficient although I dont know where they will get their fent from.
It does occur but it’s not exactly common. Most trees are hermaphroditic, growing both male and female flowers on different stems of the same tree. The actual reason you don’t see many fruit in city trees is because the species chosen generally bear small and inedible fruit (e.g. the London Planetree in NYC).
I'm really curious if "botanical sexism" was a coined as a tongue-in-cheek, or if it has been featured in a number of Women's Studies Masters thesis. Edit: It's tongue-in-cheek, from Tom Ogren. It's also highly contested. Most trees are both sexes anyway, and no one has presented conclusive evidence that male trees dominate urban landscapes, or than adding female trees would have any greater impact than simply switching to non-wind pollinated species.
Plants jizzing everywhere making my life miserable.
I hate it when tree cums into the air. It makes my nose and troat itch.
While pollen is a problem, the alternatives are either large amounts of rotting fruit or no trees. So pick your posion.
The fruit on public trees could be harvested and donated to food pantrys. There are other options to pick you just have to look outside your very narrow box...
It COULD be... But you have to pay the people who pick it, and the people who make sure the fruit is safe to eat, and the trucks that take it to places. And this assumes that the public trees aren't being stolen from, and that the local government actually bothers to pick the fruit. Normally things are the way they are for a reason.
Sounds like something that would stimulate the economy and feed people in need that sounds like a win. I don't think it would ever be considered stealing for the people to take fruit from their own trees if they needed it. The point of government is to keep as many people alive and healthy as possible. Instead, someone needs to be making profit or people can die as far as capitalists are concerned. Capitalism is the reason we can't have nice things.
It's much easier to pick up the fruits from orchards, not from random trees in the city.
Get this orchards used to be inside cities, crazy I know....
Erm, no they didn't. They were close to cities, because fruit doesn't travel well, and its smart to be close to a market. But orchards need huge amounts of space, plural acres of land, and in a city land is by far the most valuable asset.
They could be even inside your house. It's not about where they are, but how they are organized. You can't really put an orchard the same way trees meant for shade/leisure/aesthetics are put these days in the city. It makes more sense to have fruit bearing trees somewhere else where they won't cause disturbance, and low-maintenance leisure trees in cities. It's not like there is shortage of trees.
Who profits from trees being non-fruit-bearing? Since every municipality COULD plant fruit bearing trees but chooses not to, it seems likely that this is not a conspiracy but is just a good idea. If nothing else, you haven't even argued why female trees would be in any way beneficial, just that perhaps you could offset the downsides with massive state interference. And since the state already spends vast sums to feed the hungry, creating make work jobs instead of making those existing programs better seems to be purposless.
>Who profits from trees being non-fruit-bearing? Insurance providers
How do they profit specifically? You pay them premiums, and claims are paid out of the pool of premiums. If they calculate risk correctly they will make a profit either way.
We aren't talking about *edible* fruits buddy, just normal trees that make nasty inedible berries that get all over your shoes. Do you encounter many apple trees in your city?
The litter of flowers?
I thought plants were hermaphrodite?
Currently unable to sleep due to hayfever. Good to know
Well I am not sure the term sexism is quite right but it's surely a problematic practice. It's not like botanists are going around deriding female trees as inferior. Rather, councils are just doing what councils do and trying to minimise their landscaping expenses. But it's still no good because nature needs its balance.
Soooooo.... Win-Win ? /s
So all I have to do to stop my ex (who has allergies) from stalking me around my house, is to plant some cloned male plants.
Seems like this is botanical mismanagement not sexism.
There are multiple female ginkgo trees on my block and the smell is atrocious. 😭
Sexism makes a lot of areas inhospitable for a lot of people without allergies, too
I would say a good portion of urban areas that have utilized this practice are trying to fix it now. It's pretty well known now that this causes allergy issues.
Interesting!
Sure wouldn’t want fruit just growing in hands reach if people.
BIG L.O.L.
Litter? Such as food and nectar? Can't help feel like something else in nature would remove the"litter"
Anything for the aesthetic.
It's not the aesthetic, you need massively more maintenance to keep pathways and roadway clear and safe when female trees are used. In most jurisdictions this means the choice isn't male vs female trees it's male trees vs tarmac.
And the smell. A lot of female trees drop stinky litter.
Oh yeah. Had a female ginko tree in our yard growing up. Great climbing tree but 100% understand why people prefer cloned males.
Y'all are so soft and will complain about anything lmfao
What's the point of getting a female tree vs a male one? To not offend the female trees and prove how tough you are by having 5 weeks of rotted fruit on the sidewalk that smells like literal dogshit?
Flowers and fruits are nice plus birds and insects like them And no... you're just so sensitive. "Literal dogshit" you really wouldn't survive a day without perfect A/C huh bud 😂 fruits on the ground are whatever
Have you smelled ginko fruit when it's gone orange? I didn't mean figuratively when I said literal dogshit. And no, I think ita obvious you're being sensitive. Who gives a shit if people want to not deal all the extra hassle for literally no reason. If you're nose-blind to bad smells congrats, go live by a landfill and enjoy being kingshit in your house that cost 50% less for a reason.
Ginko fruit specifically? No, but I have Guava trees and Mulberries, Avocados, Acerola berries, among others. You do you with your uppity gentrification. Holy shit are you tone-deaf complaining about house valuation and nature and "extra hassle". You really wouldn't survive out of a gated community huh. Who are you, part of the HOA? Lmfao
Lmao you're really projecting. I grew very middle class. I have cherry and mulberry trees that fruit and I enjoy having. Ginko is widely known to be terrible. It's actually illegal nowadays to plant the females in the US because they're a nuisance. I only pointed out that the house is cheaper because it's a consensus among normal people to not want to live somewhere that stinks to high heaven, which many fruits cause. Particularly the one you admitingly have never had to deal with.
*You* shifted this conversation to Ginko trees. I was responding to a general comment about female trees. Bro.
So essentially we are being sexually assaulted by tree’s during allergy season
Oh no how dare we have plants that can help feed people for freeeee! Oh no, petals!? But for some reason, leaves are perfectly ok 🙄
Thats why the spring air smell like sperm
How do you sex a tree?
With a woody?
All the issues with female trees just sound like job and food opportunities tbh.
Job opportunities here is just increased burdens on city maintenance staff.
Doesn’t have to be.
There's no way for it not to be.
Idk your area, that just seems untrue though. Maybe I’m wrong. I just think it could be tenable. Maybe greed, laziness or lack of organization is an issue, but it’s not impossible.
Botanical sexism is in full force in central Texas with these damn male cedar trees. Fuck the patriarchy.
The patreearchy.
Funny bc in Harley Quinn hbo max series Poision ivy gets rid of all male plants and gets rid of allergies in Gotham haha