2 days Ago
COLUMBIA — Herrick Brown remembers a time he was doing field research on an island off the coast of Georgetown County. The USC professor looked down at his feet, the ground thick with years of fallen pine straw, and thought he was hallucinating. Puffs of pollen swirled around his ankles, causing his feet to disappear and eyes to water.
The mucky yellow pollen was everywhere on the island, and the pines were to blame. "There was so much pollen that I had kicked up walking through all the pine straw," the botanist recalled. "From my knees down, it was all pollen-colored.
" Pine trees, like oaks and magnolias, rely on the wind to spread their sneeze-inducing, eye-watering pollen. And the prevalence of these types of trees in South Carolina is partly to blame for the seasonal allergies plaguing locals right now. South Carolina sits on the edge — in several meanings of the phrase.
Its proximity to the Appalachian Mountains and Atlantic Ocean, its slightly sub-tropical climate and its relative proximity to the Caribbean and Northeastern states make it a veritable crossroads of biological diversity. Within the state's borders, there's the Upstate's piedmont region, nearly mountainous, the Midlands' sandhills and the Lowcountry's coastal clime. A combination of pollen and duckweed coats the surface of a small pond across the street from Dorene Dix’s home in Charleston.
"Compared to ...
our neighbors, Georgia and North Carolina, we're smaller, right? But in terms of the floristic diversity, we're almost in keeping with the number of species of plants that they have in those states," Brown explained. And although S.C.
is situated in the perfect spot for a lot of environmental diversity, it's also an unforgiving landscape. Plants and trees must be hardy enough to survive droughts, hurricanes, cold snaps and blistering humid summers. Some of the biggest contributors to seasonal allergies — trees that have their pollen spread through the wind, rather than bees — are perfectly suited to the sub-tropical humidity of South Carolina.
That includes live oaks and pine trees, which Brown said are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to pollen allergies in the spring. Brown pointed out several live oaks on the University of South Carolina's Horseshoe March 12. He noted how there are no flashy colors and soft petals, but it's still a flowering tree.
And basically a pollen-producing organ, he added. A live oak's unlikely-looking flowers are lumpy, conical pods of pure pollen. Dr.
Herrick Brown inspects the petal-less flowers of a live oak on the University of South Carolina's Horseshoe on March 12. "Those will expand a little bit more," Brown said, using a magnifying glass on USC's Horseshoe to inspect the bright green growths. "They'll lengthen a little bit, and when they do, they'll start to shed the pollen.
" Because the trees have evolved to be protein-packed, it means that when the pollen enters an immune system, it's more likely to cause a reaction. And without flashy petals, the live oak's flowers aren't easily identified by humans or animals, Brown said. "So these species, and probably most of the troublesome ones in terms of allergens, are wind-pollinated," he said.
Dr. Herrick Brown, a botanist who runs the University of South Carolina's herbarium, poses under a live oak on campus on March 12. Forestry, one of the state's top industries, relies on the pine tree, which is ever-present in the state's variety of environments.
Pine trees are ubiquitous throughout the Southeast and other parts of the world, but they grow well in higher and dryer places, Brown explained. It's why in northeast Columbia, where pine stands are plentiful, there's a thick cloud of pollen in the air around springtime. "I remember seeing it where it was just clouds of yellow pollen being blown around," Brown recalled, "and it just makes you eyes start itching.
" Like oaks, pine trees spread their pollen through the wind. Heavy rains and high winds — like the mercurial weather the state often sees from February to May — are prime conditions for an abundance of pollen to be produced. Brown added that with Hurricane Helene toppling thousands of trees in the Upstate, there might be an unusually high amount of pollen made this year as younger trees and plants grow up on forest floors.
Similar to a prescribed burning, the hurricane toppled old-growth trees like oaks and hickories, clearing the canopy and allowing for sunlight to pierce the forest floor and allow for other trees, such as pines, to grow up and spread an abundance of pollen. According to MUSC, the other most common types of pollen-producing trees in S.C.
include willow, birch, ash, hickory, cedar, mulberry and alder, among others..
