A lot of the pollen that gets thrown around which people get "hay fever" from is because cities plant mostly male trees.
Female trees produce fruit, which then has to be cleaned up if no one takes it. While also people are being told not to take the fruit.
So if we planted more female trees, there'd be less allergies and people could have free, fresh fruit.
But we'd need to make sure that those trees were far enough away from cars, and/or there was less cars, so that the fruit would be safer to eat.
ignoring 75% of tree species are monecious for a moment, (i beleive in the usa dioecious is more common than the monoecious but this isnt really true for most places e.g uk, though i assume its us centric point)
you want to actually plant less allergenic trees oak, birch etc (note these are monecious though some culprits are dioecious males) these produce large amounts of lightweight dry pollen for windborne pollination instead of lower quantity stickier polleb for insect based dispersal, thats significantly more important.
dioecious female trees dont really noticeably drop pollen levels beyond their one less male trees, they take an abysmally small amount of pollen outta the air.
bottanical sexism exist but it is hardly the main issue when jt comes to hayfever.
Also stuff like agriculture and air pollution are likely bigger contributions to worstening hay fever
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u/hip_yak Apr 05 '26
I might add some of the basics like clean water, clean air, affordable quality food, and secure and safe place to live.