Like A Yellow Dust Storm

By Tom Poland
April 3, 2013

A few Easters back I drove over to my hometown, Lincolnton, Georgia, from Columbia. Long stretches of I-20 provided views of massive clouds of pollen moving across the land like some 1930’s dust storm. It was as if some volcano was belching sulfur across the land and I was glad to see it.

One frigid night, I told a friend I couldn’t wait to see robins, daffodils, and pine pollen. That old adage Be careful what you wish for sure holds currency here. I sure got my wish plus some. What a mess it was. Rinsing off the car didn’t do much good. Down came more. Wherever you went, it coated everything. So here’s a question.
 
Do we have more pine pollen than ever? As a kid I have no memory whatsoever of pollen. Hard to believe I know. Maybe we just have a lot more pine trees now. Maybe that’s it. I’ve touched on this topic before, writing about how the faster-growing Southern yellow pine makes a better cash crop than the dense-grained, slow-growing hardwoods. Pines rule much of the South today and with them comes all that pollen.

A week or so ago, everywhere you looked, pollen drifted about like fine, fine cornmeal being sifted from high above, but flour is more like it. In fact, pollen is Latin for flour.
 
All this yellow stuff brings to mind volcanic ash. You’ve seen the TV shows that reveal the horrors of volcanic ash. A volcano’s steamy eruption pulverizes and incinerates rock creating ashes and minute flakes of glass that float vast distances. When they settle, they coat and eventually crush everything in their path. Remember Pompeii? People died instantly from Mount Vesuvius’s pyrotechnic blast and were entombed in cement-like ash. At least pollen doesn’t crush our homes and kill us, but what a nuisance it is. Surely it’s good for something other than what nature intended.

I decided to educate myself about pine pollen. I did a bit of research and came up with some interesting information. During late March and early April’s peak pollen season, pines shed millions of pounds of pollen into the air. Most of it, to our annoyance, coats our cars, decks, patios, and driveways, just about anything open to breezes.

Each male part of the pines, the worms, release six million grains of pollen. No wonder it comes down like volcanic ash, covering everything in its path. Each spring, we find ourselves walking and living in the midst of carousing woodlands. The trees are reproducing. As the party continues, it keeps falling and falling and blowing about. A bit of rain flushes it into the streets and you see it swirling about in lemon-colored puddles like spilled yellow paint.

Each spring I joke that there ought to be some ways to make money off pine pollen. As abundant and free as it is, you’d think some folks would have found commercials uses for pine pollen. Well guess what, they have.

Turns out the Chinese consider pine pollen powder a great dietary supplement. According to the marketing copy from some so-called health food distributors, pine pollen contains hormones and a lot of nutrients and amino acids. They claim pine pollen has more than 200 fully bioactive nutrients the body needs. Something in pine pollen, they say, improves the body’s metabolism.

Some other research I dug up claims pine pollen fights fatigue, improves memory, relieves headaches, and improves the organs’ vitality. It deceases cholesterol and helps prevent artery and heart disease. Moreover, pine pollen powder helps prevent aging. Just makes you want to step outside and open your mouth and inhale doesn’t it.

Pine pollen, being the tree’s male seed contains significant amounts of testosterone. According to some research sources, it’s one of the most potent, non-prescribed substances when it comes to steroids. All that’s hard to believe isn’t it. Of course, the pine pollen powder as it’s called is processed into health food supplements. It’s not like you can stand around in April with your mouth open and get all the benefits that easily. In fact, lest some of you feel experimental, do not ingest pine pollen at all.

This time of year pine pollen catches a lot of blame for allergies. We see it everywhere and it seems logical to believe it’s the culprit behind our sneezes, itchy eyes, running noses, and watery eyes. Its clinging, coating presence on everything in its path happens for a simple reason: it’s too heavy to hang in the air very long. It’s the fine pollen from other trees and plants that mostly cause allergies.

Pine pollen didn’t cause me any problems, but I sure got tired of seeing my shoes turn green every time I walked out into the yard. And I got tired of tracking it into my house. Down at my Mom’s place Easter Sunday, I did some outside chores that afternoon. After I got back from Lincolnton, I took off my socks and as I did puffs of yellow pollen filled the air. I just don’t remember moments like that as a kid. So, maybe there just weren’t that many pine trees back then. Or maybe when you’re a kid, pollen just isn’t on your radar.

I suppose we could claim pine pollen as Southern snow. The heavy doses we had that spring were similar to snow in one way. One night in the midst of the yellow dusting I grilled salmon on my deck. The next morning many tracks in the pollen covered the decking boards. That masked bandit of the night, the raccoon, had walked all over the deck, attracted by the aroma of salmon. The tracks in the pollen reminded me of the animal tracks I saw behind my house long ago when a dusting of snow revealed animal’s nocturnal wanderings. I washed the tracks and the pollen away but the pollen soon returned.

Thanks to a cold front’s rain and wind and the end of the pine partying, the pollen is gone with the wind now, and frankly my dear, I’m glad it’s gone, regardless of its alleged health benefits. Next spring, however, I’ll see it in a different way, but I’m not going to eat any and neither should you.