Suffer hay fever? Don’t blow your nose | Brief letters
Railway ecosystem | Allergic rhinitis | Woody Guthrie and Carillion | Royal wedding romcom? | Prince Harry
It’s not just trees (We can’t chop down all these trees and not harm ourselves, 15 May). The railway ecosystem includes many other types of plant. On my trips from Winchester to Waterloo in the 1960s, I saw everlasting peas (Lathyrus latifolius) in full flower, cascading down the banks. There are still pockets of plant diversity on the route between Cambridge and King’s Cross, thanks to Margaret Fuller, wife of the crossing keeper at Shepreth, as recorded in The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Gardeners (ed Deborah Kellaway; 1995).
Margaret Waddy
Cambridge
• David Cox offers some good advice (Seven ways to deal with hay fever, G2, 14 May) but misses out the real game-changer. Hay fever sufferers must not blow their noses. Everyone seems to know not to rub an irritated eye, but not that blowing has much the same effect on the nasal passages – congestion, irritation, and more discharge.
Dr Stuart Handysides
(Retired GP), Ware, Hertfordshire
Source: Guardian Transport
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