Hirschacker and Dossenwald
- Hirschacker / Dossenwald, 68782 Schwetzingen
Hirschacker and Dossenwald is a nature reserve and a supplementary landscape conservation area between Mannheim and Schwetzingen in the Rhine-Neckar district in Baden-Württemberg. It belongs to the Schwetzinger Sand natural area and comprises one of the most important drift sand areas in Baden-Württemberg. The dune range has calcareous dunes up to 13 metres high, sloping steeply to the east. To the west is the drifting sand field and to the east the Neckar alluvial fan.
The name "Dossenwald" is derived from "Dosse", the old German word for pine.
The area is almost completely forested, mainly with pines but also with black locust and mixed deciduous forests. High-voltage lines and large clearings in the southern Hirschacker are free of woods due to former military use. Here grow cross gentian, sand grassland with silver grass and sand strawflower and dwarf shrub heath with heather. Typical sand dwellers are the blue-winged grasshopper, ant lion, sand dune beetle and gyroscopic wasp. An oak-hornbeam forest grows on the Neckar alluvial fan with its loamy soils.
Address
Hirschacker / Dossenwald
68782 Schwetzingen
