Paterzeller Eibenwald

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This 700 year old yew tree fell victim to an arson attack in 1997

The Paterzeller Eibenwald with over 2,000 in some cases very old yew one of the largest contiguous holdings of European yew tree in Germany. The Eibenwald is located in the municipality of Wessobrunn near the village of Paterzell in southwest Upper Bavaria.

term

Circular signage of the yew nature trail with logo in the Paterzeller Eibenwald

There are no pure stands of yew that would have grown naturally. The term "yew forest" should be understood to mean that it is a forest with many yew trees. In the 87.8 hectares large nature reserve are now about 2,300 yew.

Conditions of creation

The Eibenwald is located near the Brandtswald near Paterzell, near Weilheim, southwest of Munich , in the so-called Pfaffenwinkel . It lies there between the high moraine range of Wessobrunn and the gravel delta of Raisting .

During the retreat phase of the Würm high glacial period, the gravel delta was filled up by a glacier stream that flowed from Peißenberg via Zellsee to the Ammersee basin. As cold, calcareous groundwater seeped out of the ground and solid lime was deposited in the process, a Holocene tufa deposits developed there over the past 10,000 years . This limestone ( travertine ) forms meter-thick layers over which only a shallow soil ( rendzina ) could develop. The yew grows better on such soils than most other tree species and is less pressured by the beech in particular than on other locations.

The geological peculiarity of the location is one reason why such a high proportion of yew trees has been preserved in the forest.

use

The Eibenwald was owned by the Wessobrunn monastery until secularization in 1803 . Apparently it was used less as a pasture for cattle because the forest floor was relatively swampy, the forest offered less fodder (beech nuts) due to its beech poverty and the yew trees are poisonous for the cattle. For this reason, yew trees were often even deliberately exterminated in earlier times by shepherds and carters.

However, the yew wood in the forest was used for other purposes. From the hard and at the same time elastic wood z. For example, the yew wood ceiling of the theater hall in the monastery was made; in 1810 it was transferred to the nearby “Zur Post” inn in Wessobrunn. The ceiling paintings of Mercury, Chronos or Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Phöbus Apollo in the sun chariot are attributed to Father Josef Zäch, who was employed as a painter in Wessobrunn Monastery until his death in 1693.

Nature reserve

The yew trees in the Paterzell Forest are up to 1,000 years old

The peculiarity of the Paterzell yew population was recognized in 1907 by the Weilheim doctor Friedrich (Fritz) Kollmann (1871–1957). During one of his strolls through nature, the botanically interested doctor noticed that there were an unusually large number of yew trees in the forest area near Paterzell. After an extensive inventory, measurement, mapping and photographic documentation, Kollmann described the peculiarities of the yew tree population in Paterzell in a series of scientific publications.

Kollmann campaigned for the protection of the Paterzell Eibenwald forest, whereby the royal Bavarian forest authorities proved to be unsuitable contacts. Submissions by the Bavarian Botanical Society , to which Kollmann belonged, were rejected by the forest authorities or not answered at all. Kollmann's efforts were only successful when the nature-loving Queen Marie Therese , the wife of Ludwig III. of Bavaria, for the Eibenwald campaigned. Thanks to her advocacy, the Paterzeller Eibenwald could finally be placed under special protection from 1913 onwards, when it was declared a "state natural monument ". With this decree it could be achieved that no more yew trees could be felled and that the character of the forest could be kept almost unchanged since then. In 1939 the “protected natural monument” was rededicated as a nature reserve and later placed under the protection of the Federal Nature Conservation Act.

In 1995, the Weilheim forestry office responsible at the time laid out an educational yew path. The yew path is provided with information boards and leads past prominent points in this forest; leaflets are available at the beginning of the path.

More yew forests

literature

  • Fritz Kollmann: Yew trees in the Bavarian plateau . In: Bayer communications. Bot. Society for the Exploration of the Heim. Flora , II. Vol. No. 8, pp. 125–128, Munich 1908
  • Fritz Kollmann: The yew (Taxus baccata) . In: Aus der Natur - Zeitschrift für alle Naturfreund e, 6th year. Issue 13, pp. 391–400 and Issue 14, pp. 429–436, Leipzig 1910
  • Fritz Kollmann: The spread of the yew tree in Germany . In: Naturwiss. Magazine f. Forestry and Agriculture , 1909, pp. 217–248
  • Albert Kollmann: Dr. Fritz Kollmann (1871–1957) - the discoverer of the Paterzell Eibenwald . In: Der Eibenfreund , issue 12/2005, Sierke, Göttingen, published 2006, ISBN 3-933893-42-9
  • Josef Attenberger: The yew trees in the forest of Paterzell / Upper Bavaria . In: Yearbook of the Association for the Protection of Alpine Plants and Animals , Vol. 29, 1964, pp. 61–67
  • Patrick Insinna: Analysis of old stands and natural regeneration of the yew tree in the nature reserve of Paterzell . Munich, Univ., Forest Science Fac., Dipl.-Arb., 1999
  • Patrick Insinna, Christian Ammer : Investigations into the regeneration ecology of the yew tree (Taxus baccata L.) in the nature reserve "Eibenwald bei Paterzell" . In: Forst und Holz , Vol. 55, H. 5, pp. 136–140, Alfeld (Leine), 2000
  • Manfred Rösch: Post-Ice Age history and ecological conditions of the yew forest of Paterzell . Hohenheim, Univ., Diss., 1979
  • Angelika Haschler-Böckle: The magic of the yew forest . Neue Erde, Saarbrücken 2005, ISBN 3-89060-084-0 (illustrated book)
  • Kurt Zeimentz: The yew occurrence between Wessobrunn and the Hohen Peissenberg - A survey of the Paterzeller Eibenwald and the adjacent forests . In: Der Eibenfreund , 16/2010, pp. 69-76, ISBN 978-3-00-031067-6
  • Kurt Zeimentz: A turning point in the Eibenwald near Paterzell? In: Der Eibenfreund , 24 u. 25/2019, pp. 104-110, ISBN 978-3-86780-594-0

Web links

Commons : Paterzeller Eibenwald  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tollkühn, T., undated (1996?): Eiben im Naturwaldreservat Wasserberg

Coordinates: 47 ° 51 ′ 39 ″  N , 11 ° 3 ′ 0 ″  E