Tree Pollen

    There is a tremendous amount of microscopic tree pollen floating around in the air right now.  Normally it is something people are not aware of unless they have allergies, or they can see it on the surface of something, like the photo of my truck hood, but there is a huge volume of the tiny stuff floating around out there.  In past years I have seen clouds of pollen, like billowy plumes of smoke, blowing off of the trees on the mountain slopes by gusts of wind.

    I have noticed a lot of it accumulating on the surface of the water in the calm parts of my pond.  When I see it there I am reminded of researchers investigating the ecology of the past by looking through the buried layers of mud for ancient pollen to determine what kind of plants grew in an area thousands of years before.

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