Lilla Korslången, Naturreservat

Lilla Korslången Nature Reserve is a well-preserved farm environment, where grazing and haymaking have been practiced for a long time. In the past, the pastures and meadows were important in Bergslagen. The animals could graze there and hay could be gathered for the winter. In Lilla Korslången's meadow and pasture, a rich flora has found one of its last refuges in the area.

Bergslagsbygd

Lilla Korslången is located in a hilly, lake-rich part of Bergslagen. The farm is located in the large Malingsbo-Kloten area, which was protected in its entirety as a nature conservation area in 1981. The Lilla Korslången farm is beautifully situated on the southern slope of Lake Lilla Korslången. Two kilometers east of the farm Lilla Korslången was Klothyttan's mill. Iron was manufactured at Klothyttan from the 1600s until the early 1900s. During the second half of the 1600s, the blacksmith Markus Larsson and his wife Anna lived on the farm, perhaps they were also the ones who built it. The production of iron required many animals, not least to transport coal and ore to the smelter. There was a great need for meadows and pastures. Hay could be gathered there for the winter and the animals grazed. Several small fields were also cultivated on the farm. Near these, a smokehouse and an earth cellar are still preserved today. The smokehouse is a small log house that was heated with hot smoke and could be used for drying grain or for bathing. The root cellar was probably used to store root vegetables and other foodstuffs grown on the farm.

Meadow with many plants

Typical of the meadow is the abundance of flowers and the great diversity of vascular plants. For many centuries, the meadow has played a central role in agriculture as it provided winter feed for the animals. In previous centuries, meadows were therefore a very common and widespread habitat type. Nowadays, when winter fodder is grown in the fields, it no longer fulfills any function and today only small scraps of meadowland remain. As a result, many of the species favored by haymakers, which were once so common, have become rare. But on the managed meadow and pasture at Lilla Korslången, you can still find meadow species such as sedge, field gentian, buttercups, pig's-foot, hay flower, meadow vetch, cuckoo flower, spurge, soapwort, green night-flowering violet, meadow rattle and lock fern. The pasture, like the meadow, has suffered a similar fate and only remnants of the former very large area of grazed land remain. Today, you can find small-growing, grazing-favored species such as cat's foot, almond flower, maidenhair fern, little bluebell, spring savory and sedge in Lilla Korslången.

Accessibility

Lilla Korslången belongs to level 1 in the county administrative board's leveling of the county's nature reserves, which means that the reserve has a wilderness character and lacks outdoor recreation facilities.