In the Český les PLA, this year, thousands of highly endangered wood aphids bloomed extraordinarily

Update: 26.05.2023 12:43

Přimda (Tachovsk Region) – This year, a highly endangered plant species, aphids, bloomed in an unprecedented quantity in the Na Požary National Nature Monument near Rozvadov in the Tachovsk Region in the protected landscape area (PLC) Český les. The aphid needs moist, open habitats without shading to live. Until recently, only individual plants were found in the locality, but this year thousands of pink flowers of tiny aphids bloomed there, said Markéta Kašparová, a botanist and head of the nature and landscape protection department of the Czech Forest PLA.

Všivec grows on meadows that people stopped cultivating after the post-war demise of the village of Jedlina and which gradually became overgrown. In previous years, however, nature conservationists cut out invasive trees on large areas and thus created suitable conditions

“Since 2001, we have been regularly mowing the meadows here, cutting out encroaching trees, eliminating invasive plants and in some places disturbing the grass turf,” said Kašparová. Naturalists also believe that the lice have benefited especially from the grazing of the yaks, which will be provided here by the Czech Union of Conservationists of Libosváry from 2021. The mowing and maintenance of meadows is financed by the PLA from the EU Environment Operational Program.

Aphids is a biennial, rarely even perennial plant that grows to a height of 20 centimeters, up to half of its length can be made up of grape-like inflorescences. It grows from lowlands to mountain locations on short-stemmed wet meadows and pastures, often peaty, especially on acidic soils. Blooms from May to June.

Almost 80 hectares of the Na Požary national natural monument are made up of a colorful mosaic of peat, fen and sedge meadows, sedge meadows with scattered stands of bushy willows and solitary spruces. Hundreds of species of plants and animals live here. A number of them are rare and protected. “It turns out that caring for this national natural monument makes sense. Year after year, species diversity grows and the population of protected species of plants and animals increases. Care benefits, for example, the may orchid, the carnivorous round-leaved tree frog or the blueberry willow, which grows in the Czech Republic on only four places. The northern pearl butterfly, the peat ant or even the newly discovered species of the locality, the Ménétriés groundhog, also thrive here,” added Kašparová.