I’m Allergic to Sakuras
- Andreas Kondos Sheppard
- Mar 11
- 5 min read
I’m allergic to sakuras. A quick Google search should yield a plethora of information about how the trees are not, in fact, the source of most allergies but an innocent bystander that takes the blame. But I only get swollen eyes and a stuffy nose when I stand close to them, and only when they are in bloom. I’m pretty certain that they are the source of my mildly allergic plight.
You might read the above and assume I have a dislike toward the trees. After all, they make me, if not downright ill, physically unwell. Yet I’m actually quite fond of them: their beauty, symbolism, and environmental importance. I tolerate any discomfort they cause me because they have value, and I would rather appreciate that value in discomfort than become spiteful for something that is, biologically, more my fault than the sakura’s. Every year, when the trees come into bloom, I make a point of trying to appreciate their fleeting display of beauty. Armed with a camera and a few (many) Benadryls, I seek neighbourhoods, streets, parks, pathways, or anywhere else I can enjoy the show. After having a time both admiring and photographing the trees and their flowers, I accept the coming wave of symptoms that remind me I am, in fact, allergic to sakuras.
So why am I sharing this? Because what makes these trees so remarkable — their bloom — is under threat. As the world’s climate changes, temperatures, broadly speaking, rise. But by destabilizing Earth systems that have taken immense timescales to develop, warming can lead to these systems acting erratically. This includes both extremes in heat and cold, even if the broad trend is warming. And the biosphere — that Earth system dealing with all living, and recently deceased, biological life — will in turn begin acting erratically as well. Individuals within the biosphere, who have adapted to Earth systems designed to function at lower temperatures, act in a confused manner — from upset timelines for migratory birds to corals bleaching. Sakuras are no different, and their bloom timing is already being affected by this kind of climate instability (Lobe, 2024).
Their ability to bloom is based on cycles within a now-past Earth system of lower temperatures. And these cycles, now disrupted, mean that sakura blooming cycles are likewise impacted. Since we do not totally understand how the Earth system will react in fine detail to warming-based disturbances, we also cannot predict exactly how sakura blooms will proceed. And this is a problem, not just for aesthetic and ecological reasons, but for economic ones too. The sakura bloom is a huge tourism motivator for regions with large populations of the trees: Vancouver, Washington, D.C., and, of course, Japan. Considering just Japan alone, the tourism industry surrounding bloom viewing, or hanami, was reported to generate ¥1.39 trillion in 2025, a record- breaking economic influx for the country (Inoue, 2025). But as hanami season becomes less predictable, and even less cohesive, with only some trees blooming at any given time, it takes little thought to realize the risk this poses to the season’s economic benefits. And this does not even consider other regions with notable blooms.
And unfortunately, aside from environmental policy regarding climate change mitigation and sakura conservation, there is not much governments can do to solve this problem. The issue is biology; a sakura is blooming because, evolutionarily, it has identified a suitable temperature, and thus suitable conditions, to expend energy on growing flowers, which are its primary reproductive structure. Once the tree’s genetics detect signatures marking the conditions as right for a bloom, it blooms. But an early bloom comes with problems genetics cannot fully detect. Lack of sunlight, absence of needed pollinators, and sudden cold snaps are just a few factors that can completely disrupt this process. A disrupted bloom is a subpar visual. It is an ecological warning sign. And, perhaps saddest of all, it can cause the blooming event as a whole to become fragmented, lacking, or even entirely absent. Recent reporting on cherry blossoms in Victoria notes the risk of climate mismatches, in which bloom timing shifts out of step with pollinators and other ecological relationships, as well as the danger posed by badly timed cold snaps after warm periods (Lobe, 2024). Government policy cannot force a tree to act against its own genetics, and the capacity for gene editing of these trees to “fix” the bloom cycle is not presently available, or even ethical, to be applied at a meaningful scale.
Putting aside the economic, aesthetic, cultural, and ecological value of these blooms, they also serve as a litmus test, indicating the impact of climate change on our planet’s processes. And the results of this test should have us worried. And from my own personal experiences, I think there is another lesson to be learned here.
Setting aside everything I stated above in praise of the sakura, I am allergic to it. The tree is objectively damaging to my physical state, however minor, and maybe I should be glad these blooms, which cause so much discomfort to me, may well come to an end. And yet I’m not. Because I know that, regardless of my personal issues with the trees, they are still a good in this world and have value that makes them worth protecting. The issue is, this sentiment — that we have certain problems that might actually be solved by climate change — seems to have taken root in some people. From the populist MAGA movement suggesting Earth is “too cold” to genuine economic prospects of Arctic trade routes being freed by a lack of year-round ice, there seems to be a growing sentiment of what climate change can offer.
Of course, there is some degree to which we need to take advantage of our current situation. If the Arctic is to become ice free, then perhaps further impacts could be somehow reduced by shortening shipping distances. If something is inevitable, as our current degree of global warming appears to be, then we should try to identify ways to make positives from a bad situation; when given lemons, make lemonade. But we should not be viewing a phenomenon as harmful as climate change, in any capacity, as something to look forward to, or even seek to bring about.
We can, and need to, recognize when something is inconvenient to us yet still valuable. Cold weather can suck. Yet our Earth systems could not function in their present form without it. We should not justify, anticipate, or even desire catastrophic changes because they solve something that we, humans, find inconvenient.
I am allergic to sakuras. And yet, I still look forward to them every year.
Inoue, Y. (2025, March 26). Hanami season to have record ¥1.39 trillion economic impact on Japan. The Japan Times
Lobe, S. (2024, February 22). Cherry blossom trees bloom earlier than usual in Victoria this year. The Martlet. https://martlet.ca/climate-weirding-cherry-blossom-trees-bloom-early-in-victoria/
BBC Travel. (2024, February 23). Climate change thwarts cherry blossom travel.
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