Botanical Sexism

In this series, we’ve been exploring the relationship between bees, honey, and the immune system, beginning with crystallized honey and why it’s a sign of authenticity rather than a flaw, then moving into bee pollen and how it interacts with seasonal allergies. Together, those first pieces asked us to reconsider what real food looks like and how the immune system responds to it. Today, we’re stepping a little further into the environment around us.

Seasonal allergies are often treated as unavoidable. Spring comes, pollen appears, and many of us brace ourselves. But what if part of the story isn’t just about plants doing what plants do, but about how our cities were designed decades ago, and how those decisions continue to shape what we experience today?

There’s an idea that’s been circulating quietly among botanists, allergists, and urban foresters for years, often referred to as botanical sexism. The term may sound provocative, but the concept itself is fairly simple. Beginning around the 1950s and 1960s, many cities intentionally planted male trees instead of female ones. The reason wasn’t ideological. It was practical. Female trees drop fruit, seeds, and pods, which can be messy and require cleanup. Male trees do not. For city planners focused on cleaner sidewalks and lower maintenance costs, male trees seemed like the obvious choice.

What wasn’t part of that conversation at the time was pollen.

In many tree species, male trees are the pollen producers, while female trees receive pollen. In a balanced landscape, pollen has somewhere to go. But when large numbers of male trees are planted without their female counterparts, pollen remains suspended in the air, circulating through streets, parks, homes, and lungs. Over time, those planting decisions compounded. Trees matured, pollen output increased, and urban environments, already warmer and more enclosed than rural ones, became especially good at trapping airborne pollen.

This leads to a question worth sitting with. Could the way our cities were planted be one factor influencing how intense allergy season feels today?

This isn’t about pointing to a single cause. Allergies are complex. Diet, immune health, pollution, indoor living, and reduced microbial exposure all play a role. But pollen load matters, and it’s reasonable to wonder whether an environment engineered for convenience may have unintentionally increased our exposure to it. Seen this way, allergies can be understood less as a personal failure or a broken immune system, and more as a response, a signal from the body reacting to conditions it didn’t evolve alongside.

Which brings us back to something we often return to here. Supporting the immune system doesn’t start with suppression. It starts with nourishment. Real food, intact ecosystems, and a closer relationship to the natural world that shapes us all play a role in resilience.

Next time, we’ll look more closely at how large-scale food production depends on pollination, how those systems have been built for efficiency rather than balance, and what that may mean for bees, landscapes, and the foods many of us consume every day.

If you’ve found value in this series so far, we encourage you to share it. These topics touch food, health, and the environment we all live in, and meaningful change begins with better understanding and shared awareness.

Stay curious,

Brenna & Kenny