Ostheimer hats

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NSG Ostheimer hats

The Ostheimer Hute is a nature reserve near the village of Ostheim in the Diemeltal , in the Kassel district , northern Hesse . The area consists of two separate areas and has a total area of ​​16.19 hectares . A hat is an old expression for an area jointly grazed by the village community, in which the cattle (here mostly sheep and goats) were tended by a shepherd. As a conservation measure, the area is currently being extensively grazed again after it had been lying fallow for decades and was heavily overgrown with bushes. The juniper, largely spurned by cattle, was able to spread as pasture weeds ( juniper heather ).

Location and characteristics of the area

A part of the area is located directly above the locality of Ostheim, east of the Diemel valley. An elongated second sub-area lies a little northeast of it, on the slope of a small dry valley at the foot of the slope of the Arensberg. These are steep slopes exposed to the southwest, the subsurface of which consists of shell limestone . The area includes species-rich limestone grasslands with large orchids , some of which are interspersed with juniper bushes .

Vegetation, flora and fauna

The calcareous grasslands in the area belong to the so-called Gentian Fiederzwenken lawn, phytosociological the Association Gentiano-Koelerietum, which is the (former) grazed variant of calcareous grasslands. In the area there is sometimes a particularly lean and stony variant, which is characterized by open soil and some calcareous mosses . Numerous rare and endangered plant species such as German fringed gentian ( Gentianella germanica ), Austrian flax ( Linum austriacum ), eyebright ( Euphrasia stricta ) and numerous orchid species, including large stocks of orchid orchid ( Orchis militaris ), grow in these poor grasslands . In the field of breeds backed Shrike . The fauna of the area includes the warmth -loving butterflies, horseshoe-yellow clover ( Colias alfacariensis ) and comma butterflies ( Hesperia comma ). The rare and endangered, heat-loving cicada species Goniagnathus brevis and Doratura horvathi reach their north-western limit of distribution in the area. The common heather snail ( Helicella itala ) is common in the area.

natural reserve

The area was designated as a nature reserve in 1989. In 2008 it was also protected as a Natura 2000 area. In the North Hesse 2000 landscape framework plan , it is part of sub-area 1 of the biotope network concept for lean grasslands, mountain meadows and heaths. With a total of 750 hectares of limestone grassland in the federal states of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, spread over 145 areas, the Diemeltal is one of the most important occurrences of limestone grasslands in northern Germany.

Tourism and nature experience

The area is crossed by a hiking trail that is part of the “Muschelkalk im Diemeltal” eco-path. The so-called eco-paths are explained circular hiking trails on archeology and landscape history in the North Hessian region.

literature

  • Lothar and Sieglinde Nitsche: City of Kassel, District of Kassel and Schwalm-Eder District (=  nature reserves in Hesse . Volume 2 ). Cognitio-Verlag, Niedenstein 2003, ISBN 3-932583-07-8 .
  • Thomas Fartmann: The butterfly communities of the semi- arid grass complexes of the Diemel valley . Biocenology of butterflies and rams in an old hudeland . Treatises from the Westphalian Museum of Natural History 66 (1). 2004 (256 pages + vegetation tables in the appendix).
  • Dominik Poniatowski, Florian Hertenstein: The cicada fauna of the limestone grasslands of the Middle and Lower Diemel Valley (East Westphalia / North Hesse) (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha) . In: Cicadina . No. 13 , 2013, p. 43-58 .
  • Jutta Baumgart: Semi-dry and blue grass grass . In: B. Nowak (Ed.): Contributions to the knowledge of Hessian plant communities. Results of the plant sociological Sunday excursions of the Hessian Botanical Working Group. Botany and nature conservation in Hessen . Supplement 2, 1990, p. 117–125 (+ vegetation table in the appendix).

Web links

Commons : Ostheimer Hute nature reserve  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 27.6 ″  N , 9 ° 19 ′ 29.6 ″  E