Nature of the Poodří Region – Flora
Poodří – the elongated ridge of the Nízký Jeseník Mountains, the rugged horizon of the Beskydy and Podbeskydí ranges, the Odra River winding in countless meanders, a green belt of meadows crowned by mighty oaks, lindens, and willows, the sparkling surfaces of fishponds, the curly edges of floodplain forests concealing the dark eyes of pools, and the distant roofs of villages among the fields. These fleeting images could be used to characterize the landscape – a type of landscape that has become rare in our country.
The axis of the area is the Odra River, which enters the Protected Landscape Area from the Nízký Jeseník Mountains still as a fast-flowing stream with a gravel bed. After several kilometers near Jeseník nad Odrou, the river calms as it enters the floodplain of the Moravian Gate; the channel begins to cut more deeply into the soft alluvial soils and the first of countless meanders appear.
A characteristic and visually striking feature of the Poodří landscape is its alluvial meadows and fishponds. These originated on the sites of extensive forests during medieval colonization in the 13th and 14th centuries, when the first settlements were established along the tributaries of the Odra. Their extent changed many times over the centuries, as evidenced by pond dams, abandoned millraces, and remnants of agricultural homesteads. Meadows and pastures were probably the first man-made land uses to replace forest complexes.
To this day, a continuous belt of alluvial meadows has been preserved along both banks of the Odra throughout the entire length of the area. It represents the largest system of regularly flooded meadows in the Czech Republic, covering an area of more than 2,300 hectares. This seemingly uniform meadow complex, however, reveals itself upon closer examination as a diverse mosaic of many types of grassland communities, whose floristic composition varies according to moisture and soil conditions.