Vena hage, Naturreservat

The Vena hage nature reserve is located in a very old-fashioned cultural landscape in Vikersbygden near Venakärrets and Älvhytteängens nature reserve. The land has been farmed for a long time, which together with the calcareous soil has created a very rich vascular plant and fungal flora.

Species-rich pastures

The open pastures are hilly, with rocks and limestone ridges that are exposed. There are also traces of ancient stone clearing of the land in the form of clearing cairns and stone walls. Since the late 1970s, hay and silage have been harvested on the old fields, and they are now beginning to have a meadow-like, species-rich plant flora. A newly constructed pond has been in the center of the reserve since 2004.

The mining industry's need for meadows

Vena hage has been used as meadow and pasture for a very long time, probably since the Middle Ages. Maps from the 1850-60s show that the whole area was then used as hay meadows. At that time there were also some buildings in the area, a lodge and some earthworks. In the central parts of the reserve, a group of conifers is marked. At the beginning of the 20th century, the hayfield was converted to pasture. Typical of Bergslagen is that the proportion of meadowland is greater than on the farms of the plains. Mining required many draught animals and the need for winter fodder was therefore particularly great. The so-called lime farming was a common form of farming in Bergslagen, where temporary fields, lime trees, were taken up in the meadowland, and then after a few years they were laid down again and returned to meadow. It was also common for the meadows to be sparsely overgrown with trees, which were also pruned of leaves for the animals' winter feed.

Many rare fungi

Vena hage has a long tradition as meadow and pasture land. This, combined with the calcareous soil, means that it is teeming with rare, endangered and specialized species. A total of 224 species have been reported from Vena hage in the species portal, a website for those who want to report and search for animals, plants and fungi in Sweden. Of these, 22 are red-listed, i.e. species at risk of extinction in the country. There are many exciting meadow mushrooms here, such as the blue lousewort, porphyry lousewort, the common lousewort and the scarlet lousewort.

Plants and butterflies

The vascular plant flora is also rich and there are a large number of plants favored by haymaking and grazing. Some red-listed species that grow here are meadow sedge, moonflower, summer saxifrage, sand violet and haymaking. Typical of the area is also blueberry, which often grows near stone walls or stone collections. The flowering meadows are also home to many butterflies, such as the violet-edged goldfinch and the wetland butterfly.

A village with many nature reserves

In the village of Älvhyttan you will find several nature reserves. In the middle of the village is Venakärret - a so-called extreme rice bog. A little further south on the way up to Övra gården, there is an old hayfield, Älvhytteängen. On the southwest shore of Lake Älvlången you will find Näsmarkerna - a species-rich forest pasture and a little further north is another small rich marsh, namely Bromängen.

Accessibility

Vena hage belongs to level 1 in the County Administrative Board's leveling of the county's nature reserves, which means that the reserve lacks outdoor recreation facilities.

Read more about the leveling and management of protected nature