Meet an Allergen: Grass

Once a month, I like to give a sort of overview of a particular common allergen. This month, we'll be studying a particularly common allergen: grass.

Grass: any plant of the family Gramineae, an important and widely distributed group of vascular plants, having an extraordinary range of adaptation. Numbering approximately 600 genera and 9,000 species, the grasses form the climax vegetation in great areas of low rainfall throughout the world: the prairies and plains of North America, the savannas and pampas of South America, the steppes and plains of Eurasia, and the veldt of Africa. Most grasses are annual or perennial herbs with fibrous roots and, often, rhizomes. The stems are always noded and are typically hollow and swollen at the nodes, although many genera have solid stems. The leaves have two parts: a sheath surrounding the stem (called the culm in grasses); and a blade, usually flat and linear. The flowers are of a unique form, the inflorescence being subdivided into spikelets each containing one or more tiny florets. (In other flowering plants the inflorescences are clusters of separate flowers, never spikelets.) The dry seedlike fruit is called a caryopsis, or grain.

Grass may not look it, but it can release a surprising amount of pollen beginning in early spring and ending in late summer to early fall. Each of these small, spherical grains can be carried many miles and each of them looks suspiciously similar to the Death Star.

Coincidence?

Symptoms of grass allergies include breathing difficulties, dry cough, sneezing, headache, runny nose and mild to severe itching. In order to stave off such reactions, please try to stay indoors during the times of highest pollen count (check the National Allergy Forecast link on the left side for up to date information).

If you're dead set on having ground cover to dress up your yard, you should consider using something which will produce less pollen such as Irish moss, Ice plant, Morning Glory, Gazania, or Dwarf Rosemary. In addition to being more unique and producing less pollen, these also generally require less maintenance which means less time outside during high allergen days.

If you have any additional questions about grass allergies, please contact an allergy specialist.

Gesundheit.