Blauer Berg

The Blauer Berg is a ridge running roughly north-south to the south-east of the village of Oberschoderlee in the market town of Stronsdorf. To the west and southwest, the mountain breaks off abruptly in the form of a loess slope with a gradient of over 60%. At the foot of this slope is a valley that stretches from Oberschoderlee to the south-east towards the Haslerberg and in which the Gießbach springs, which flows into the Pulkau a little further north. The greatest botanical rarity of the Blauer Berg is the European hornwort, a species from the foxtail family, which occurs mainly on the upper edge of the slope and also partly on the open parts of the embankment. The occurrence of the hornwort on the Blauer Berg was discovered by Pastor Ripper from Stronsdorf and documented by the Viennese teacher Teyber in 1906. On October 19, 1987, a section at the summit of the Blue Mountain was declared a natural monument with the explicit purpose of preserving the hornwort.