Skogssjöområdets naturreservat

The Skogssjö area offers something for everyone - for those who want to relax in beautiful nature as well as for those interested in geology or botany. The land is a mosaic of pebble ridges, hills and hollows, as well as the rare plant luddvedel.

The Skogssjö area is a very hilly landscape sculpted by the ice sheet as it melted away 10,000-12,000 years ago. Today, Lake Skogssjön is located in one of the depressions.

When the ice sheet retreated, it left behind a large block of ice that remained here. Sand and gravel were deposited around it in the form of pebble ridges and hills. The shapely ridge west of Skogssjön is one of these.

When the ice melted, it formed a so-called dead ice pit, which filled with water and formed a beautiful lake. The reserve also covers part of one of the most well-formed marginal deltas we have in southern Sweden. The marginal delta is a gravel formation deposited by the Baltic Ice Lake, which covered large parts of southern Sweden when the ice sheet melted.

The Skogssjö area consists mainly of sparse coniferous forest with several old pines. A little deciduous forest grows in the south and around the farm Stora Skogssjö there are more open pastures with juniper bushes.

Just north of the lake, on a sandy slope, there are several unusual plants that normally occur on the steppes of south-eastern Europe. These include the yellow pea plant luddvedel, which is only known from five other places on the Swedish mainland, all located in western Östergötland.