baumzaehlen - Primeval Forests & Their Trees

Kurjenrahka National Park , Finland – Pukkipalo Primeval Forest

The park (29 km²) mostly consists of bogs and former managed forest but many small forest islands in the middle of bogs have been spared from logging and resemble primeval forest ¹ . The most important of these is Pukkipalo Primeval Forest , the most impressive old-growth forest of southwestern Finland ¹ . The trees are in many places more than 150 years old. The forest is not fully unlogged: some of the biggest trees were felled in the early 1900s; nevertheless it has a strong feeling of primeval forest. Picea abies (Norway spruce) dominates. Tree species diversity is low and most species are very easy to identify. Pukkipalo lies at approx. 80 m elevation, its annual precipitation is approx. 650 mm and average annual temperature 4.7 °C.

A hiking trail leads through Pukkipalo . Camping in the National Park is only allowed at designated sites, none of which are in Pukkipalo .

References :

1 http://www.luontoon.fi

Official site:

http://www.nationalparks.fi/en/kurjenrahkanp