Ah yes. It's that season. The season that leaves ya sneezin'. If you couldn't tell by the mucus-green layer of plant sperm on your car and other surfaces, it's the time of year that you always forget about while looking out of your classroom window wishing for warm spring days.
Pollen is here with a fierce need to impregnate anything, including your nostrils. So while you sit at your computer, box of tissues and allergy medicine at hand, here are some trees that almost make the misery of pollen season worth it. Almost.
1. Japanese Maple Trees
This particular tree can be found in Portland, Oregon. Which is unusual. Just like plant sperm in your nose.
2. Cherry Trees
These beautiful flowering cherry trees can be seen in April in Bonn, Germany. This lane is famous for its blooming trees, and thousands of people flock to the streets every year during peak season.
Maybe George Washington chopped cherry trees down because of his allergies. I don't know. I'm a writer, not an allergy historian.
3. Rainbow Eucalyptus
This tree is found in warm, sunny climates such as Hawaii. It's often farmed in Texas and Florida because the pulp is excellent for making white paper. It also looks like Fruit Stripe gum.
4. Giant Sequoia Trees
These trees can be found in Sequoia National Park in California. They are the Earth's largest and longest-living trees. They're also the largest living organism (by volume) on the planet. The second largest is your mother.
5. Angel Oak
The angel oak can only be found on John's Island in South Carolina. It stands 66.5 feet tall and is 28 feet in circumference. It gives off, like, hella pollen. But it's cute for wedding photos, so pros and cons.
6. Baobab Trees
These trees are found in one of the most biologically diverse places in the world: Madagascar. Zambezi legend has it that when the world was young, Baobab trees were lush and beautiful but became conceited, so the gods uprooted them and shoved them back into the earth with roots facing up. This still doesn't explain why they look so ... well I think you know.
7. El Arbol Del Tule
Spanish for "The Tree of Tule," Arbol Del Tule is located in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It owns the title of the tree with the stoutest trunk in the world and is estimated to be around 2,000 years old. At this point, I think it's earned the right to pollinate.
8. Socotra Dragon Tree
Also known as the dragon blood tree, the Socotra Dragon Tree is found in the Socotra archipelago. The tree gets its name from the red sap that it produces. That's so meta.
8. 144-Year-Old Japanese Wisteria
This plant is actually more related to a pea than a tree, but they rhyme, so close enough. Maybe if the pollen was this shade of purple it wouldn't be so awful to have it literally everywhere.
10. Blue Jacaranda
The Blue Jacaranda is native to South America, and blooms in spring and early summer. They got their name because they're blue. Da ba di, da ba di.