REMEMBER BRUCE

Remember Bruce Earl Plato

I missed my chance. At the last Bert Miller Nature Club Meeting on June 16th Bruce Kerschner, noted Western New York Old Growth Tree scientist, asked if I wanted to go with a team into the Niagara Glen. “Measuring the heights of some of those old giants - the Tulip trees.” I respect Bruce for he reminds me of the late Bert Miller. Bruce and Bert would go where “no man trod.” If you have been in the Glen with scientists, men and women who are looking for unusual species, you know that you have to be part “mountain goat.” I have trod there among the moss covered megaliths over the years with Bert Miller and Ernie Giles and believe me it was not easy. Sorry Bruce, but this old guy’s knees couldn’t handle your rigorous ramblings. My loss, but the Review in the Saturday, June 28th edition captured what energetic Bruce Kerschner was about. I wonder if Allison Langley, Review staff writer, accompanied Bruce. All power to you, Allison, if you did.
This following part of the article is about another Tulip tree but it was here in Greater Fort Erie. I quote Bert Miller’s own words in 1958 as he told us, “ It’s the largest tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) in Ontario and I believe that it is the oldest.” Dr. Sherwood Fox of the University of Western Ontario, who Bert knew at that time, estimated it to be about 400 years old as he compared it to other tulip trees whose rings he had counted. Bruce Kerschner with his modern boring device would have confirmed the age estimate.
Bert, my father Perc, and I measured the Rose Hill Old Growth giant tree. Bert took a roll of twine and we stretched it around its greatest width. Sixteen feet seven inches! Its diameter was over five feet. What a tree! I still have a photo of Bert standing in front of this enormous Tulip tree circa 1950. Our prize tree was a young sapling when the Neutral Indians (Attiwandarons) controlled the Niagara Fronrtier in the mid-16th century! If only we could capture what our giant Tulip tree had seen over the centuries.
Lumbermen in the early 1970’s culled the Graham Woods at Rose Hill. Not far away south of the Dominion Road stood the giant tree. Bert Miller came to our place and sadly told my father, “Perc, they cut down the Tulip tree.” He was quite distraught as I recall for Bert loved trees.
We need trees in our ever growing air polluted environment. We need to preserve Old Growth Trees where ever possible. They have a story to tell.