Here are the short answers to the questions in the title: No, poplar seed hair is not pollen; and yes, they cause allergies.
Poplars are dioecious trees; Some trees have only male flowers, and some trees have only female flowers. In other words, there are male poplar trees and female poplar trees.
The pollinators are male trees. Depending on the climate and altitude conditions, male flowers (catkins) are formed usually in the beginning of April, before the poplar trees foliate.
Mature catkins disseminate pollen. The pollen is so small that it is impossible to see them with the naked eye when floating freely in the air. These pollens can only be seen to be yellow when they are accumulated in one place.
After the pollen scattering process is finished, the male flowers dry and fall off. The female flowers continue their development with foliation.
As the capsule fruits mature, they begin to cleave and the seed hair inside them comes out.
This structure, known as seed hair, creates an intermediary environment for carrying seeds far away, even with the slightest movement of air. The photo below shows a large number of black poplar (Populus nigra) seeds found in seed hair.
These seed hairs are not allergens. They can only be as uncomfortable as a piece of cotton that touches your nose.
The findings of a scientific study (Hu et al. 2008) showed that poplar seed hair is a very good pollen trap. In the study, it was seen that 46 different plants' pollen were caught in the seed hair and 26 of them were allergens. Therefore, although seed hairs do not cause allergies on their own, the allergen pollen they carry attached to them can cause discomfort.
Poplar pollen is classified as a moderate allergen (KHGOAOAEM, 2020). Pollen disseminated by male poplars cause moderate allergies. However, the seed hair scattered by female poplars can increase the discomfort they cause with the allergen pollen that accumulated on them.
REFERENCES
KHGOAOAEM, 2020. https://kavakcilik.ogm.gov.tr/Documents/kavakcilik_bilgiler/kavak_peyzaj.pdf
Ya‐Qin Hu , David Kay Ferguson , Subir Bera & Cheng‐Sen Li, 2008. Seed hairs of poplar trees as natural airborne pollen trap for allergenic pollen grains, Grana, 47:3, 241-245, DOI: 10.1080/00173130802237681
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