Like so many people around the world I suffer from hayfever, although it seems to strike later than most people. This always throws me because when I see everyone else sneezing away I think ‘oh maybe I’ve become immune and won’t get it this year‘ then it strikes. Seems to have hit with avengence today. I’m just extremely glad that Benadryl seems to sort me out pretty much most of the time.

This has however triggered my curiosity and here is the result, below is a list of common pollen producered in England and when they flower. Using this info I’m now pretty sure that I’m allergic to either Nettle or Dock, not sure how this is usefly but its good to know ;).
This info was found from My Pharmacy so if you’re not too lazy you could just go there, at the end of the list I will put links to several more ‘pollen calendars’ that I found.

  • Alder – February and early March

    • Ash – Mostly April but sometimes in March too.

  • Birch – Large amounts of pollen in late March to early April
  • Dock – Low count all summer, peaks in July
  • Elm – March (April in Scotland)
  • Grass – June (July in Scotland) pollen count is high on warm dry days
  • Hornbeam – April in some years, pollen is close to the trees
  • Horse Chestnut – May, pollen is close to the trees
  • Lime – June (July in Scotland) pollen is close to the trees
  • Nettle – Large amounts of pollen in Late June to mid-August
  • Oak – Large amounts of pollen in late April or May
  • Oil-seed rape – April to June, not much pollen gets airborne so the problem is close to the fields
  • Pine – Problem is mainly in Scotland during June, lower pollen counts elsewhere
  • Plane – April, mainly in urban areas, London has a high pollen count during this month
  • Plantain – Low pollen count but throughout the summer
  • Popular – Mid-March (in Southern and central England)
  • Sweet Chestnut – July, mainly only in england, pollen is close to the trees
  • Willow – Small amount of pollen from mid-March to May
  • Yew – March (April in Scotland) this pollen is less allergenic

Well there you go, they are in alphabetical order, I dunno if it would be more useful in date order but hey. Here are some links to other useful and graphical representations of similar information:

From Benadryl, also has allergy advice (I’ve not read it but it could be good).
National Pollen Research Unit, need to select the pollen calendar from the right-hand menu.
Asthma Cure, only if you actually know the proper names for plants.

Well I was gonna go into why modern humans have such over active immune systems but I think I’ll leave that for another day!!