‘City in a Forest’ lives up to its nickname as Atlanta experiences record pollen — but pollen may be the least of our concerns

The residents of “The City in a Forest” have been fiercely reminded of its nickname since late March, with the yearly Spring pollen covering the outdoors and with allergy season blooming just as fast as vegetation.

This year has seen a particularly high pollen season; on March 29, the pollen count for Atlanta was over 14,800 — the highest single-day count in over 35 years. The following day recorded an 11,100 pollen count.

The pollen count measures pollen grains per cubic meter of air over the previous 24 hours, according to Atlanta Allergy & Asthma’s Pollen Counting Station. A count above 1500 is considered extremely high for trees.

One claim that’s been making rounds online is that the pollen season is especially bad because cities and urban planners practice “botanical sexism,” where only male trees are planted as female trees would bear fruit causing too much of a hassle to clean.

And while that practice does exist, it’s likely negligible as a reason for Atlanta’s high pollen levels.

“It has very, very, very little fact behind it,” said Greg Levine, certified arborist and executive director of Trees Atlanta, who has worked with the organization for over 30 years. “Most trees are monoecious, which means they have both female and male parts. Oak trees, pine trees, beech trees, maple trees — they all have both parts. There are only a few species that are either female or male.”

To add to that, the majority of the trees in and around the city come from nature, not planted by city planners or organizations like Trees Atlanta, he argues. As for the few species that are dioecious — having individuals with male or female reproductive parts — they’ll be found close to a 50-50 split naturally.

“Ginkgo is one, but how many ginkgos do we plant? It’s not even a percent of a percent of a percent,” Levine said.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why pollen levels are high, the reason for the high counts may be traced back to an increasingly common suspect: the changing climate.

“It could be [that] with climate issues, you’re pushing blooming times more together,” Levine speculated. “You’re pushing the things that might be blooming later to bloom earlier, and we are seeing leafing out and flowering times come up earlier than they used to due to climate change.”

Other factors like tree stress that could be attributed to a number of factors like disease, drought and insects could also play a role, as trees can sometimes produce more seeds than normal when they are stressed as a last-ditch evolutionary effort to “continue on.” 

Additionally, a warming climate reducing the intensity of late frosts could play a role.

“A late frost will kill off some flowers, and we didn’t have a late freeze,” Levine said. “So, there was no late freeze to nip the flowers in the bud either. So it could be a combination of those three things.”

Trees Atlanta has taken root as one of Atlanta’s leading environmental nonprofits, both planting and conserving trees and educating the community at large about their importance. And while the pollen is undoubtedly being felt, it shouldn’t fool anyone that we have too many trees by any means. 

“Looking at canopy changes, the only place that canopy is actually increasing is along our streets, which means we’re losing it everywhere else,” Levine said, attributing the increased tree coverage along city streets to organizations like Trees Atlanta, developers and community members all planting trees in their neighborhood streets.

With dedicated leadership, he feels the city can “control our destiny” and protect its tree coverage, cool the city with the addition of more trees planted — which has been shown in studies to reduce the urban heat island effect — and protect more of the natural forests. At least, that’s what the optimist in him believes.

With that said, the reality is Atlanta is trending in the wrong direction, with Levine having no doubt” that the city has lost a lot of its tree canopy, adding that he is eagerly awaiting the results of a study out of researchers from Georgia Tech to see the exact amount of canopy lost.

So although the pollen has been intense, it is nothing compared to the larger problem of losing tree coverage — a problem he hopes to see leadership from the city step up and address through stronger ordinances.

“Pollen is the least of our worries; the pollen is a temporary couple of months. The benefits the trees do for us are 12 months,” Levine said. “I hope people are connected to what’s happening to the canopy and do what they can to add to their own yards, developments, schools, whatever it may be —  because it’s a community solution that needs to happen.”