Cool pollen, though.

I'm allergic to pollen.

That's a geranium pollen.

A different pollen signature, if you like, or a different pollen fingerprint.

I am allergic to pollen.

Tom has a pollen allergy.

I have an allergy to pollen.

But pollen forensics can be very subtle.

Perhaps there's more pollen in the city.

They get paid by pollen and nectar, to move that male sperm, the pollen, from flower to flower.

Pollen is produced by the anthers of flowers.

But anyway, take a look at its pollen.

Now, pollen from plants, which are wind dispersed

The fossilized pollen was not of savanna vegetation.

And of course, they're made to carry this pollen.

Pollen is a flower's way of making more flowers.

So, that's 20 micrometers across, that pollen grain there.

But not all pollen is quite so simple looking.

Like I said, pollen carries the male sex cells.

They build up a static electric charge and the pollen jumps on them and helps spread that pollen from bloom to bloom.

First of all, pollen is tiny. Yes we know that.

The pollen has little barbs on it, if we look.

That tells me that it's actually been fossilized, this pollen.

Pollen. Clear as a map reference. South of the river.

Just how well can masks block the, even smaller than pollen, yellow sand dust? I think it much more of a nuisance than pollen.

Here is a scanning electron micrograph of a grain of pollen.

Now the way that plants transmit that information is through pollen.

With the trains coming in to urban hubs, they can carry pollen with them, very light pollen, and it's just a big supermarket in the city.

These are little bits of individual grain of pollen there and there, and here is a what you see as one little yellow dot of pollen, when you look in a microscope, it's actually made of thousands of little grains of pollen.

That means they can't the pollen in their bloom can't fertilize themselves.

These are little bits of individual grains of pollen there and there.

My story is actually not about plant propagation, but about pollen itself.

like him that has managed to bring out the best in pollen.

And this is where it gets interesting for forensics. Pollen is tiny.

Now, much of the pollen will still be there after repeated washings.

And here what you see is one little yellow dot of pollen, when you look in the microscope it's actually made of thousands of little grains of pollen.

The plant gets something, and the hawk moth spreads the pollen somewhere else.

And the plant showers them with pollen, and off they go and pollinate.

And the reason for that is they've got to chuck out masses and masses of pollen to have any chance of the pollen reaching another plant of the same species.

It confused me why did these allergy symptoms persist well past the pollen season?

And it isn't just bright flowers that have pollen it's also trees and grasses.

Four very different habitats might look similar, but they've got very different pollen signatures.

And there is as many different kinds of pollen as there are flowering plants.

Asthma large number, we could detect things like pollen count, air quality, respiratory rate.

And then they were so clever, they found a way to analyze fossilized pollen.