baumzaehlen - Primeval Forests & Their Trees

Havešová National Nature Reserve, Slovakia

Like Stužica National Nature Reserve , Havešová is a part of Poloniny National Park and from 2007 a part of Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians World Heritage Area. The reserve consists of 1.7 km ² of highly productive almost pure Fagus sylvatica (European beech) forest ¹ . Apart from a small portion of younger forest ² , the reserve has no signs of any human influence ¹ .

F. sylvatica reaches great heights here. The tallest tree I measured in 2015 with a Nikon Laser 550A S instrument was 48.3 m. Still taller trees have been reported ^{1 2 3} but they have probably been measured using the tangent method, which often results in over-measurement ⁴ . However, I measured only about 10 trees, so there may well be F. sylvatica exceeding 50 metres. The record for a reliably measured F. sylvatica is 49.3 m for a tree in Germany ⁵ .

Elevation is 450 –730 m. Annual precipitation is 700 – 800 mm and average annual temperature approx. 7°C ¹ .

References :

1 Korpel’, Š. (1995): Die Urwälder der Westkarpaten. Gustav Fischer Verlag.

2 http://www.pralesy.sk/

3 Drossler, L. & Lupke, B.v. (2007): Bestandesstruktur, Verjungung und Standortfaktoren in zwei Buchenurwald-Reservaten der Slowakei. Allg. Forst. Jagdztg. 178 , 121 – 135.

4 Bragg, D. C., Frelich, L. E., Leverett, R. T., Blozan, W. & Luthringer, D. J. (2011): The Sine Method: An Alternative Height Measurement Technique . The Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Research Note SRS-22.

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Official site :

http://www.sopsr.sk/nppoloniny/en/nature.php