Poplar And Allergies

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Half a century ago, slender poplars were regulars in any city. They were proud of them, composed poems about them, sang touching songs. Their reddish earrings and white fluff did not irritate people, because no one had any idea about the existence of allergies. Today, people have turned poplar fluff into one of the culprits of allergies and have started cutting down poplars

Poplars, my lovers in my city …

The words of this song echoed in the soul of every Soviet person, because in any city or working-class settlement, slender poplars were lined up in even ranks along the roads, decorated yards and parks, and populated forest plantations. Although, of course, it was not the poplars who were in love with the city, but people loved their cities, they planted young poplars in order to equip and green the place of residence.

Poplars gained their popularity by their unpretentious nature. They grew successfully on any soil, withstood heat and bitter frosts, withstood prolonged autumn rains and summer drought. No other tree could compete with the poplar for such an ingenuous love of life.

At the same time, they very quickly gained height, directing their pyramidal or tent-shaped crown to the heavens. After 5-7 years, they outgrew the roofs of two and three-story houses, which were mainly built up in young cities in those years. Looking at the growing poplars, people believed that they were able to turn their city into a blooming garden, about which Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote.

Poplar fluff

Poplars are dioecious woody plants. Their earring inflorescences behave differently depending on gender. Male earrings, freed from pollen, dry from further uselessness and fall to the ground. Pollinated female catkins after fruit ripening fill the city with white fluff, giving the impression of falling snow.

Children came up with all kinds of games with poplar fluff. The girls were stuffing doll mattresses and pillows with fluff. Poplar fluff may have annoyed the janitors, but no one showed any particular dislike for it. In those days it was still easy to breathe, the organisms of people treated nature with confidence, and therefore the skin did not become covered with a rash and the eyes did not water from a light summer "snowfall".

Allergy

Not poplar fluff is the cause of the plague of the late 20th century - allergies, but the harmful emissions of industrial giants into the atmosphere. The human immune system, which for centuries has been adapting to the surrounding world, intoxicated by industrial emissions, seems to have gone crazy, having ceased to recognize the long-familiar smells.

Trying to protect the human body from harmful intrusions, the immune system, unable to adapt itself to rapidly changing environmental conditions, began to reinsure itself. What yesterday did not cause her any doubts about harmlessness to humans, suddenly became suspicious, requiring defensive action. So she defends herself by allergic reactions to everything, sending tears and a runny nose, skin redness and rashes in order to protect the human body from more serious problems.

Wrong choice

Instead of creating treatment facilities, taking measures to purify the air, which requires large financial costs, people went the easy way.

Today, half a century of poplars are being mercilessly cut down, which have been blamed for the ever-widening allergy in human organisms. Cities are bare, poplar fluff no longer falls “on the eyelashes and shoulders of friends,” and allergies, all the same, never cease to pester especially sensitive human organisms.