Hay fever: Ugly flowers are the most dangerous

All content is checked by medical journalists.

MunichMany people with hay fever avoid flower beds and ornamental bouquets like the devil avoids holy water. But the evasive strategy is of little use, because pretty flowers are rarely to blame for red eyes and sneezing attacks.

In Central Europe, mugwort, ground elder or ragweed are particularly dangerous for pollen allergy sufferers. But also hazel, birch and many grasses often cause problems for allergy sufferers. Avoiding your pollen is hardly possible. Because the flowers of these plants are not only difficult to spot - they also produce pollen in large quantities.

Mass instead of class

The sagebrush ragweed, which was introduced from the American continent, has driven the principle of “quantity instead of quality” to perfection: its knotty, pale yellow flower bodies are hardly recognizable for botanical laypeople. But every single plant can send up to a trillion pollen grains into the wind per season. And they have it all: three quarters of all pollen allergy sufferers react to ragweed pollen with hay fever, asthma or a rash. This makes the inconspicuous plant one of the most dangerous natural allergy triggers.

In fact, “beauty” does not play a role for such plants, says Prof. Robert Valet from the Allergy Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Because inconspicuous or ugly plants do not rely on insects to spread their pollen, “they distribute their pollen with the wind. This is the most important mechanism for allergies. "

Fragrant flowers unsuspecting

In contrast, pretty flowers are usually unsuspicious. “Plants whose flowers smell or look pretty try to attract insects so that they can carry their pollen from one flower to the next,” explains allergy expert Valet. And because this path is very efficient, such plants only have to produce a fraction of the pollen.

So instead of going a long way around flower shops and ornamental gardens, people with hay fever or allergic asthma should keep an eye on the pollen forecast of the weather services and know at what time of year the allergens that are important to them are particularly numerous. Allergy sufferers in southern Germany would have to be prepared for ragweed pollen from mid-July and in the north of the republic from around mid-August, reports the German Pollen Information Service Foundation. The same applies to mugwort. Grasses, on the other hand, are active for almost the entire pollen season: According to the forecast, their pollen will fly from shortly before Easter to the beginning of autumn this year. (jr)

Source: Vanderbilt University Medical Center; German Pollen Information Service Foundation

Tags:  magazine unfulfilled wish to have children travel medicine