"The poplar pollen affects the air quality of the city, and harms human health, so the city authorities must do something to deal with it," the report quoted a gardening expert as saying.

Hospitals in Beijing have received increasing numbers of patients who suffer from asthma or allergies after inhaling the pollen, which blankets the city in a snowfall of white fluff, reports said.

The parched country also routinely seeds clouds to create rainfall, and state media announced earlier this week that meteorologists had created artificial snow in Tibet for the first time.

This is cache, read story here