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From Patricia Limerick's The Legacy of Conquest. Posted for no good reason but that I love stories about imported plants and animals fucking up the West.

As powerful and persistent as the fantasy that the West set Americans free from relying on the federal government was the fantasy that westward movement could set one free from the past. The West, for instance, was once a refuge for people who had trouble breathing. Sufferers from asthma, bronchitis, and even tuberculosis believed they chose a therapeutic environment when they chose the clean, dry air of the West.

Respiratory refugees particularly favored Arizona. Tucson's population jumped from 45,454 in 1950 to 330,537 in 1980, in large part an accretion of people who liked the climate–the clear air, the direct sunlight. Understandably, many of these new arrivals missed their homelands. Ill at ease with the peculiar plants and exposed soil of the desert, they naturally attempted to replicate the gardens and yards they had left behind. One popular familiar plant was the magnificently named fruitless mulberry, the male of the species, which does not produce messy berries. What the fruit-free mulberry produces is pollen.

Re-creating a familiars landscape, Tucson immigrants had also re-created a familiar pollen count. Allergies reactivated.