Benninger Ried
Coordinates: 47 ° 58 ′ 26 ″ N , 10 ° 12 ′ 14 ″ E
The Benninger Ried ( [ 'bɛnɪŋɐ ri: t ] ) is a moor landscape between Benningen ( Unterallgäu ) and Memmingen . It has been a nature reserve since 1939. Natura 2000 , the network of protected areas of the European Union, granted the region the protection status of an FFH area in 1998 under the same name, but significantly expanded .
From Memmingen, the Ried can be easily reached and circled on foot. This reed landscape was once much larger. By cultivation measures (drainage) it was pushed back to the area that is today under nature protection .
geology
The Iller glacier, which had advanced from the Alps to the area in front of Grönenbach in the last Ice Age , released the ice age meltwater that poured into powerful, ramified streams to the north and formed today's "Memminger dry valley" (low terrace gravel). Today the A7 motorway and the Oberstdorf - Memmingen railway line run through this plain. To the west of the dry valley, today's Iller meanders through a younger, hydrologically independent valley. In the Memmingen area, the groundwater emerges over a large area, which has worked its way through the mighty gravel areas formed in the ice ages ( Günz , Mindel , Riss and Würme ice ages ). The watercourses of the former Rhine glacier , whose eastern tongues reached as far as the Leutkirch area , also meet in the Memmingen area. During its passage through the gravel layers, the carbonated water partially dissolves the abundant lime there. When the water escapes into the gravel cover, which becomes thinner towards the north and sloping steeper than the groundwater, the lime is then excreted again and thickening lime crusts are formed, which are also known as tufa . In the fields, this loose lime appears as "Alm", as so-called " white earth ". The water for the Memminger brewery comes from the well I of the Stadtwerke Memmingen south of the Benninger Ried.
Flora and fauna
On these limestone soils, between ponds, small lakes, dry reed cushions, on peat bog cushions and along the streams, a rich flora developed with z. T. very rare species. You can find the small rattlespot , meadow foam herb , devil's claw, fatty herbs , bed herbs , cotton grass, quivering grass, lilies and the like. a. The purple carnation should be mentioned as a gem of the Benninger Ried . This sedge carnation (the Riednägele) has its only location in the world here in Benninger Ried, so it is one of the endemics . Occurrences on the Untersee of Lake Constance have disappeared since the 1960s. The plant, which used to grow in dense lawns, is now very rare in the reed.
The fauna of the Benninger Moos is also rich in species. A very rare specimen was recently discovered. According to this, there is a high probability that a flea of the genus Niphargus only occurs in Benningen worldwide. In addition to the sedge carnation, if further scientific studies are confirmed, it would be the second “jewel” of the Benninger reed. After extensive investigations in recent years, a number of animal species have been discovered in the reed, which were first sighted in Bavaria and partly also in Germany and which are partly on the “ Red List ” ( water mites , cicadas and mosquitoes).
natural reserve
The Benninger Ried is Swabia's most important spring and water catchment area . The lime spring swamp of the reed suffers from strong vegetation development and the source area threatens to overgrown with bushes and trees. The disastrous development was triggered by human interventions ( drainage , building houses and roads, drawing off drinking water), which seriously disrupted the reed's water balance . The inflow of groundwater sank and the flow of the springs in the reed decreased. A vegetation foreign to the sedge could then establish itself. Because of its global importance, the Benninger Ried was included in a major nature conservation project in 1996, which was supported by the European Union's LIFE-Nature funding. The aim was to optimize and sustainably improve the water balance in the Ried. For this purpose, drains were laid in the local area of Benningen, which draw the water out of the settlement area. The water is then fed to the reed via a distribution system so that the groundwater level in the nature reserve rose again. Further landscape conservation measures served and still serve to secure the habitat of the unique vegetation. Although the LIFE project has now expired, the development of the Benninger Ried will continue to be scientifically supervised. On September 10, 2011, an information center on Benninger Ried was opened in the old sacristan's house next to the Ried chapel.
Benninger Ried Chapel
At the edge of Ried, there is a Ried chapel . It was built in 1218. Every year the Benningen parish stops at the chapel for its Corpus Christi procession . The reason for the construction of the chapel was the Benninger Host Miracle , an allegedly bleeding host .
According to a local legend, a miller is said to have taken a host home after communion in 1216 and placed it between the millstones of the neighboring miller. On the feast of St. George she began to bleed from this desecration.
Inside the chapel, this “miraculous event” is depicted in paintings by the painter Johann Friedrich Sichelbein . A miracle host procession developed from the miracle of the host. Bishop Friedrich von Augsburg placed the host in St. Martin in nearby Memmingen for the purpose of proper storage in a display vessel. A later bishop of Augsburg , Cardinal Peter von Schaumberg , however, banned the Eucharistic cult of healing "after personal examination" in 1447.
Abbot Gallus von Ottobeuren had the chapel renewed and enlarged in 1674 after it had been badly damaged in 1586. In 1718 she got a new tower. In its current condition, it was reopened on June 17, 1987 after extensive renovation.
literature
- Dorothea Schuster: It was once scattered on Corpus Christi in the Allgäuer Zeitung No. 183 of August 10, 2005.
- Johann Bauer: Geological-botanical walks in the Allgäu 1st volume, Verlag für Heimatpflege Kempten, 1983.
- Herbert Scholz and Udo Scholz: The Becoming of the Allgäu Landscape , Verlag für Heimatpflege Kempten, 1981.
- Olav König, Dagobert Smija and Thomas Wittling: The Benninger Ried. Island of Diversity , ed. by the government of Swabia, Augsburg, 2006.
- Hubert Anwander and Klaus Möller: So that they are still there tomorrow. Groundwater remediation of the Benninger Ried , ed. by the community of Benningen and the Bavarian State Ministry for Environment and Health, Benningen and Munich, 2011.
Web links
- Ried chapel near Benningen
- The Eucharistic Miracle of Benningen, Germany 1216 (PDF; 169 kB)
- Benninger Ried nature experience with museum
Individual evidence
- ^ Maximilian Dietrich: The district of Memmingen . Maximilian Dietrich Verlag, Memmingen 1971, ISBN 3-87164-059-X .
- ↑ World Database on Protected Areas - Benninger Ried (English)
- ↑ 8027-301 Benninger Ried. (FFH area) Profiles of the Natura 2000 areas. Published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation . Retrieved November 25, 2017.
- ↑ The sedge is blooming again. In: Memminger Zeitung. May 6, 2009.
- ↑ Report in the Allgäuer Zeitung from July 5, 2006 (br) under the title Unique Cancer in Benninger Ried
