So I was sitting on my bed on Sunday afternoon (oh all right, I was taking a nap…) and happened to glance out the open door into the garden, where I saw that our Japanese Yew bushes seemed to be smoking.
Really. Several times a minute, at random intervals and from different locations, little puffs of smoke were emanating from between the branches.
I was sure there was a fire, but a closer inspection revealed that this was no smoke. This was pollen, fine as smoke, bursting out of the small flower buds that had cropped up all over the bush this season.
As the seed pods open, they let out a fine spray of dust-like particles that now coated the tree and, like dust from an old carpet, fell in abundance when the wind blew or when one shook a branch.
It really was an amazing spectacle, watching these yews propagating themselves right in front of our eyes.
And unfortunately for hay fever sufferers, our noses.
