{"id":40088,"date":"2015-04-12T16:45:21","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T21:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=40088"},"modified":"2015-04-12T16:45:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T21:45:21","slug":"sex-drugs-and-plant-biology-why-much-of-texas-is-covered-in-green-gunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2015\/04\/12\/sex-drugs-and-plant-biology-why-much-of-texas-is-covered-in-green-gunk\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex, Drugs and Plant Biology: Why Much of Texas is Covered in Green Gunk"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_40092\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Does your car look like this? Many do during springtime in Texas. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/OAK-POLLEN-CAR.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40092\" alt=\"Does your car look like this? Many do during springtime in Texas. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/OAK-POLLEN-CAR-300x224.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/OAK-POLLEN-CAR-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/OAK-POLLEN-CAR-620x463.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/OAK-POLLEN-CAR.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Mose BUchele<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Does your car look like this? Many do during springtime in Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Every spring clouds of green pollen descend on Austin, bringing misery to allergy-suffering public radio reporters like me\u00a0and frustrating drivers like DeAunderia Bowens.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You know I just got my car washed and literally got up the next morning and my car was covered with this green stuff!&#8221; she said on her way to work. &#8220;If I had a green car it would be alright, but clearly not working on a grey vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This time of year the stuff is oak pollen, but why does its get everywhere? The answer might make you look at trees a little differently.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out we are surrounded by tree sex.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/199668365&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->&#8220;Plants have sex, they really do,\u201d UT Biology Professor Norma Fowler tells me at her office.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how it works: When humans want to reproduce, they choose a partner. Trees are a little less discriminating. Oak trees have both male flowers and female flowers. \u00a0The male flowers are little strands called \u201ccatkins.\u201d You see them in piles on the ground these days.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_40095\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Prof. Norma Fowler studies and teach plant biology at UT Austin. \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/Fowler-PICTURE.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40095\" alt=\"Prof. Norma Fowler studies and teach plant biology at UT Austin. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/Fowler-PICTURE-300x265.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/Fowler-PICTURE-300x265.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/Fowler-PICTURE-620x548.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/04\/Fowler-PICTURE.jpg 1843w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Mose Buchele<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. Norma Fowler studies and teach plant biology at UT Austin.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;What [the catkins] do is they just throw the pollen, which is what the male flowers produce. Throw it out into the wind,&#8221; says Fowler. &#8220;The female flowers are very small, they&#8217;re like little brushes, and they just strain that pollen out of the wind. That\u2019s plant sex.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is also why the pollen gets everywhere. \u00a0Trees need to produce tons of pollen if they&#8217;re going to have any chance of, somehow, reaching the female flowers. The strategy works well for the trees, but not for people with allergies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;An awful lot of the pollen doesn&#8217;t land on the females,&#8221; says Fowler. &#8220;It lands on the sidewalks, it lands on the cars, it gets in our noses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She pauses to wipe her nose.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sorry, it\u2019s a bad day today,&#8221; she says. \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m properly drugged up with over the counter drugs like everybody else in Austin today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Full disclosure: I am too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every spring clouds of green pollen descend on Austin, bringing misery to allergy-suffering public radio reporters like me\u00a0and frustrating drivers like DeAunderia Bowens. &#8220;You know I just got my car washed and literally got up the next morning and my car was covered with this green stuff!&#8221; she said on her way to work. &#8220;If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40088"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40112,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40088\/revisions\/40112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}