March, 2013, I am not a botanist or an allergist. In winter 2011 my nine Ficus nitida trees froze just deep enough to kill the leaves and smaller branches. The larger branches lived and new growth occurred after several months. During the months that the dead leaves and thin dead branches began to break down I came down with a terrible respiratory problem. The respiratory problem hit everyone in my household and recovery took months. Some friends and neighbors in the Phoenix area described similar respiratory problems. None of us, or anyone we knew, thought about the F. nitida decaying in the air. We all recovered and in the winter of 2012-2013 the F. nitidas froze again. One morning a few months after the freeze, while sitting on the patio, I saw what I thought was mist swirling and blowing through the yard. I discovered that a breeze was taking some sort of dust out of the dead parts of the trees. Large amounts of dust I should add. It hadnâÂÂt been too long since the last rain and we hadnâÂÂt had any dust storms to fill the trees with dirt. The trees should have been relatively clean when compared with summer dust conditions. I thought little of it until later that day while I was working on one of the trees and became aware that I was breathing a lot of their dust and shortly became very sick. It reminded me of being sick 2 years before because the symptoms were the same. I believe itâÂÂs possible that as the plant material breaks down into small particles they become airborne and wreak havoc on our lungs. Here is an article about F. nitida and how dangerous toxins are trapped by their leaves then released when they die and break down. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3AWATE.0000026521.99552.fd?LI=true#

Unfortunately, now itâ time for my trees to go.

Bob

Here is a link that might be useful: Capture of Particulate Pollution by Trees