How does life make the most of things?

I have an allergy to pollen.

I have hay fever.

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

And that's actually rather useful for forensics and so on.

I am allergic to pollen.

I'm allergic to pollen.

So, different species of plants grow in different places, and some pollen carries further than others.

(Laughter)

Tom has hay fever.

Tom has a pollen allergy.

It went up and down, and it really started to accelerate around 70,000 years ago.

They are, you know they get paid for their services.

And there are flowers that are self infertile.

The vase burst into fragments.

The vase was broken to pieces.

The vase crashed to pieces.

Very showy, to attract lots of insects to do its bidding.

But pollen forensics can be very subtle.

Evolution works that way.

The vase broke into fragments.

And they get up to all sorts of tricks.

To my surprise, it did not correlate.

How do you know?

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

A lot of people are dealing with hay fever now.

For example, some deter pests, some help drainage.

Now that's not just deaf children.

It's like a little Disneyland for them. It's not like what we see.

What the honey bee does it pollinates, takes nectar from the flower, pollinates another flower, cross pollinates.

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

And of course, bees are not the only important factor here.

So this, for example, when you see bees flying around these little plants, and they're collecting pollen, those pollen grains that they're collecting, they pack into their legs and they take it back to the hive, and that's what makes the beehive, the wax in the beehive.

So in an apple orchard, for instance, you'll have rows of 10 apples of one variety, and then you have another apple tree that's a different type of pollen.

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

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

That's probably true of humans as well, mostly.

Perhaps there's more pollen in the city.

And bees are very faithful.

Many weeds were growing among the flowers.

Could you please clear the weeds from the garden and water the flowers in the flowerbed for me?

It's also very biologically active, as anyone with hay fever will understand.

The vase fell to the floor and shattered.

So flies love this.

Now, all this diversity means that you can look at a pollen grain and tell what species it came from, and that's actually quite handy if you maybe have a sample and you want to see where it came from.