old times

nature article Earl Plato
Yes, I admit that I am an old story teller. This past Saturday I helped to lead some members of the Niagara Frontier Botanical Society from New York State courtesy of our Bert Miller Nature Club in a walk through Marcy’s Woods. I had asked club director, Dr. Rick Stockton, to help me. Thanks Rick. The weather was perfect and only a few mosquitoes. I am an amateur naturalist so why am I leading? It was a privilege for I always learn something new. These people were very knowledgeable and if you know anything about botanists they are a delight to hear as they try to determine a special species. It was a slow deliberate walk with them and they had asked me to at least show the way along the Upper Trail first and then back along the Lower Trail. At one stop I took the time to tell one of my stories. Those who know me have heard it over the years.
My first car was a blue elderly Dodge sedan and one weekend Tom Behring and I headed out in it to Letchworth State Park. We were both old Boy Scouts and reasonably prepared for a good weekend. Tom was a good swimmer and with goggles and fins did portions of the Genesee River. I prepared something to eat. From an old Coleman Cooler I extracted some good Canadian bacon and in one of my mother’s old cast iron frying pan I fried some bacon. No, I didn’t soak some of the bacon juice with my bread as some of my relatives do. Tom arrived from his swim and appreciated my efforts. Later he made the comment, “Earl, there’s some scouring rush.” I took the greasy frying pan to the growth of scouring rushes and pulled some of these rushes. On the end of each stem was a mound of fine flour-like sandy dust. I recall scrubbing the pan and in a short time I had cleaned the pan and rinsed it in the shallow water of the fast flowing river Our late scoutmaster Ed Hayton had shown us the effective scouring power of Horsetails (Scouring Rush). Every time I lead a group in Marcy’s I tell that same story if I remember. It is a pleasant memory.
Books on the life of Ontario’s pioneers including “Roughing It In The Bush” by Susanah Moodie. refer to the “scouring rushes” were used to clean dirty dishes and particularly intransigent cooking pots.
These plants are members of the unique genus Equisetum hyemale. Its tough greenish stems possesses almost invisible rows of projecting silicon crystal - thus the name scouring rush. If you come with me I’ll demonstrate the cutting power of these crystals by rubbing a stem of this species gently against the flat of your fingernail and I may even tell you my old story.
Our botanists from Buffalo discussed how these plants reproduce. Too technical for me. A characteristic peculiar to these horsetails is their jointed “bamboo-like” stems. I usually, with a little effort, pull a section apart. We used to use a piece of stiff wire to open a section and you then would have a straw that lasted for quite sometime.
Later on in the season a fringe grows out from each stem section. Is this where the name “Horsetails” comes from? Marcy’s Woods has the greatest stand of these unique plants that I know of in the area. Bert Miller took me there as a lad over fifty years ago. Heaven forbid that developers move in and destroy Fort Erie’s natural heritage there. The gracious late Dr. George Marcy intended it for a Nature Reserve forever. Besides I want to keep telling my old story.