Plane Tree Poisoning
It was Tuesday and I woke up feeling fine. It was windy all night and morning was the same. I stepped outside briefly to visit the lemon tree and suddenly started sneezing, my eyes and nose were streaming and I felt myself gagging and itchy in the throat, tissues couldn’t be drawn quickly enough to stem the flow. Then it dawned on me … Plane Tree season!
The street I live on doesn’t actually have any plane trees but all around us, and all over The City of Port Phillip the streets are lined with them. So when the spring winds hit I suffer and no amount of anti histamines will help.
These are wonderful looking European trees that cover much of our neighbour hood streetscapes, yet these trees for many months of the year have people gasping and gagging for air as they bombard our airways with their airborne irritants. You may have have experienced their effects as they drop their bombs of trichome fibres which swirl in the air getting into eyes, throats and airways.
While many people associate wrongly the symptoms with allergies they are simply an irritant that can trigger allergy like reactions especially throughout the months of September to January. I myself suffer from allergies which I have had identified and eliminated with treatment via an allergy and respiratory specialist. I was allergic to my cat and my partner said we had to keep it or I had to leave, so I undertook 3 years of monthly injections to desensitise me from the effects of Phillip (the cat) hair and dander. I also suffer bouts of manageable hay fever so I understand a thing or two about allergies. However the effects of the Plane Trees are, according to my Doctor, quite seperate from an allergy and many people suffer from them whether they suffer from hay fever or not. In my own case I have noticed the effects more dramatically over the past 2 years due no doubt to being in lockdown within Port Phillip with little escape from the Trees.
Having done some Googleing on this topic there has been scant medical research done on the effects that these trees have on people other than research that has looked at the hay fever effects of pollens and grasses. As my specialist pointed out these are an unrelated category but anecdotally in my own case they do seem to trigger hay fever like symptoms and my use of puffers over the Covid years has hit new heights. However on the rare occasions when the ring of steel has been lifted and I can travel outside the Port Phillip municipality to our family weekender to do maintenance and cut pre summer grasses before the bushfire period. I breath in the country dust and pollen drenched atmosphere but the asthma puffers and anti histamines don’t ever get used…. until I return to Port Phillip.
I am not a Plane tree hater and love the umbrella like effects that these trees present throughout the Municipality but I believe that they do represent a serious health hazard that has not been officially identified. Having said that the City of Melbourne has taken the stance to replacing these trees with more sensible local and drought resistant varieties that do no possess the health risks.
It would be interesting to ascertain how many other people suffer as I do from Plane Tree poisoning. Perhaps our council could do some initial research… In any case some community feedback would be welcome… Maybe its time to give our natives a go...
Below is visual evidence of the vast amounts of the seed bombs that these trees shed on an ongoing basis for up to 5 months of the year - (Must be costing council bomb to clean each year as well)
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/plane-trees-a-serious-health-risk-during-spring-doctors-say-20151030-gkmxzd.html
https://theconversation.com/plane-trees-getting-on-your-nose-the-truth-about-hay-fever-9223
plane tree trichomes https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/24/melbournes-plane-trees-to-be-replaced-by-species-resistant-to-climate-change
