Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - First part - I. Physical Geography - 4. Vegetation. By Lector A. Nilsson, Ph. D., Institute of Forestry, Stockholm
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58
I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SWEDEN.
The Beech region embraces the southern part of the country with
Öland and Gotland, although the beech does not occur wild on these
islands. The southwest boundary-line of the territory where the spruce
occurs wild, goes through Halland 5 to 10 kilometers from its eastern
limit down through the north of Skåne to the south end of lake Immeln
and thence through the south of Blekinge. This boundary-line divides
the beech region into two quite distinct districts. With the
exception that beech here and there occurs, the vegetation of the northern
district has the same character as that of the oak region. In the
southern district the character of the landscape is marked by large
cultivated plains together with beechwoods and, in a lesser degree,
alder-bogs and — particularly along the above mentioned boundary-line
— extensive heaths. Fields of drift-sand give in several places a
peculiar character to the coasts.
The beech-woods are generally quite compact. The ground is covered with
beech-leaves and — except on moss-covered rocks — only solitary plants are met
with, such as wood-anemone (Anemone nemorosa L.), wood-sorrel (Oxalis
Aceto-sella L.), oak fern (Polypodium Dryopteris L.), wavy hair-grass, and others. Thin
beech-woods with a surface-covering of bilberry are only exceptionally met with.
The heaths have originated from oak- or beechwoods destroyed by fire or
injudicious cutting, or on formerly cultivated fields. They are marked by a dense growth
of heather interspersed with cowberries, crowberries, cross-leaved heath (Erica
tetralix L.), sheep’s fescue (Festuca ovina L.), wavy hair-grass and, in the
southwest, hairy green-weed (Genista pilosa L.), and others. The bottom-covering
differs according to the state of development of the heath. In the first stage it
consists of rarely-occurring species of Cladonia and Polytrichum, which later on
are superseded by reindeer-moss and finally by leaf-mosses (Hylocomium species).
Boggy heaths occur also, marked by bog-moss and sweet gale (Myrica Gale L.).
The heaths are slowly developing into woods again. The drift-sand fields are
marked by a belt of downs with lymegrass (Elymus arenarius L.) and sea
maram (Psamma arenaria R. & S.). Directly inside of these downs are, on the
east and south coast, woods (planted) met with, while on the west-coast a
heath-belt with reindeer-moss, sea sedge (Carex arenaria L.), heather, and crowberry
is found between the downs and the woods.
Even the sea has its peculiar vegetation, which is chiefly
composed of sea-weeds and is best developed on a firm bottom. Besides, the
development is chiefly determined by the strength of the light and
the salinity of the water. Best developed on the westcoast, where the
water is most saline, this vegetation will be poorer and of other
character in the Baltic and the Bothnian Gulf according to the diminution
of the salinity towards the north.
The decreasing light towards the depth causes a distribution of the
seaweeds into different depth regions and only allows their descending to a slight
depth, in greater abundance only to about 40 meters. Three depth regions are
discerned. On the westcoast the upper one — the litoral region — is characterized
by bladder seaweed (Fucus vesiculosus L.), knobbed wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum
Le Jol.), cutweed or black wrack (Fucus serratus L.), and other great olivaceous
or brown sea-weeds; the middle one — the sublitoral region — especially by
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