There can be thousands of poplar catkins per tree, Claire Thomas Federici, a botanist and plant geneticist at the University of California, Riverside, said by email.Ĭatkins “resemble caterpillars, and that is how they are often described, or as squiggly, worm-like structures,” she said. Poplar trees are part of the willow family and native to the northern hemisphere.

However, several experts who viewed the video told Reuters that it showed the spike-shaped inflorescences of poplar trees known as catkins, which are abundant in the northern Chinese region where the video was shot, while a rain of worms or insects was unlikely because it is too cold there for such organisms at this time of year. One tweet saying: “China citizens told to find shelter after it looked like it started to rain worms” has been viewed more than 18 million times at the time of writing.Īnother user sharing the claim on Facebook said: “China wakes up to ‘rain of worms’ that splattered on locals cars, who have now been asked to now carry umbrellas”. (Reuters) - A viral clip online likely shows the catkins, or flower spikes, of poplar trees covering cars in northern China, not a “rain of worms” as social media posts and some news reports have claimed, experts told Reuters.

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