THAT would have been from Cottonwood trees and also VERY annoying. Those along with the "helicopter" seeds (can't recall the name of the tree) and pollen too. I have pollen allergies, which as I'm aging seems to bring on some asthma type issues. As for cutting trees....I guess none of us would have houses or would be living in communities if trees hadn't been cut down. I think it was stated that new trees would be planted in place of these so I don't see an issue with it...other than the ones to come down are pretty old.

Texas Mountain Cedar
 

A white pollen that once brought me to the Urgent Care doctor in central Texas is from a tree called the Texas Mountain Cedar tree (although it is actually a laurel.) Twenty percent of Texans are affected by this pollen.

After the pollen blooms, gusts of wind blow this pollen from the tree in great clouds.

Texans I know call it "Cedar Fever". I experienced it in Austin. In New Mexico windblown indigenous Juniper pollen, which is yellow, coats everything in the spring. Also the non indigenous female Cottonwood trees there which grow mostly along riverbanks produce white cottony blizzards about this time of year. Siberian Elm trees planted all over the state by then Governor Clyde Tingley in the 1930's in the Spring produce sail like seeds which seem to enter every possible crevice and produce fast growing saplings in seemingly no time at all. (I once heard he thought he was getting Chinese Elm trees. He was not an educated man.) I guess every region contains nuisance vegetation of some sort.

Didn't Tumbleweeds (Russian Thistle) get into the USA in a shipment of wheat from Russia or by Russian immigrants back in 1873?

Someone made a good point about new trees. The first house we built (in '73), had a scraped bare lot. We put in two trees and moved four years later. In 2008 my DIL and I went back there to see where her husband/our son grew up. Our two spindly young trees were gone, but several huge trees were in their place. It is beautiful.

Not every live oak is worth saving. Many that are have some sort of protection.

Memories
 

Austin is the Center of the Mountain Cedar (Juniper) pollen area which extends down toward San Antonio and up toward Dallas. I was in New Braunfels when it struck me down.

When I lived in San Antonio, I lived near a very large city park (San Pedro Park) which contained a lot of Cottonwood trees. I was never troubled by the white clouds of floating seeds that they expelled. I actually thought it was pretty.