If you feel sneezy during the holidays, it might be your decor

Under a crown of tight branches, Erik Burke lifted an incense cedar seed and turned it in his hand. 

Its papery wings had opened like a duck bill, waiting for pollen from above. From its bright green branches hang small cones with fine grains that will soon sail away on dry and windy winter days.

And with that, the pollen season begins — one that gets underway far earlier than most people realize when they’re sniffing and sneezing in Eugene, one of the worst cities in the United States for spring allergies.

But Burke, an arborist and allergy sufferer, believes most trees remove more pollen from the air than they contribute. 

“Our conifers catch giant amounts of the pollen in the winter on their leaves, hold it, then the rain washes it down into the soil,” he said.

That’s why many people don’t feel as sneezy when trees are pollinating. But in this bowl-like valley, surrounded by hills and forests, some of what drifts can also cling to trees — an unfortunate setup for holiday revelers who bring live evergreens into their homes.

Allergic to the holidays? 

Pollen has kept Kraig Jacobson, a founder of Oregon Allergy Associates, busy through nearly four decades of practice, he told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. And its presence doesn’t take a break for the holidays.

But it’s not active pollen causing problems — it’s pollen from seasons past. 

“If you’ve gone to cut down your own Christmas tree, you probably had times where if you got it out in the woods, there’s still pollen,” Jacobson said. “That is pollen from way before, but with those conifer trees, it sticks around on the tree.”

Some clinics have described this as Christmas tree syndrome, though it’s simply an allergy exacerbation.

Otherwise, the effects of trees and pollen largely stay outdoors until the spring.

While cottonwood tufts that drift like snow in early June get a bad rap for the worst of the season, that’s mostly fluff. Those seed hairs appear after pollination. By then, it’s grass season, and Eugene and Springfield sit just south of ryegrass farms.

Jacobson runs a local sampling device at Oregon Allergy Associates that captures pollen daily. The pollen is then examined under a microscope to count particles per cubic meter — a scale that ranges from 0 (low) to more than 200 (very high).

Levels in recent years for trees often have remained high during April. Grass pollen counts have been literally off the charts: They’ve reached into the thousands.

Rising temperatures have extended Eugene and Springfield’s pollen season by 39 days, according to research from Climate Central.

Historically, the allergy season starts each December, when trees like incense cedar, coast redwood and hazelnut begin releasing pollen. Through the winter, alder and elm also contribute, followed by Douglas fir, pine and oak in the spring.

The culmination comes in June, when grass and tree pollination overlap — with walnut, pecan and linden trees finishing their cycle — and the season peaks before taking a brief pause.

A tradeoff for trees 

Golden dust often coats the sidewalks just a few blocks from Burke’s office near downtown Eugene when the incense cedar is pollinating again. He has watched their seasons since the 1990s at Friends of Trees, the nonprofit he leads that plants and tends trees across the community.

The work has folded into climate action as repeated heat waves stress the urban canopy, weakening trees that help soak up heat and soften the impact of rising temperatures on people.

And that is part of why this cedar tree is a marvel, and why its reproduction through pollination is so important, Burke said.

“Incense cedar is the only of our native cedars that is drought-tolerant, climate-resilient and native to the hot, dry valley floor,” said Burke, explaining how they grow all over — from Spencer Butte to along the railroad tracks.

“There’s babies coming up,” he said. “They’re really tough adapted trees.”