Storsvedsbästan has been protected as a natural monument since 1997
At a natural monument it is unlawful
- to erect any buildings or structures
- to blast, dig, excavate, dump, or drain
- to extract natural resources
- to lay cables in the air or the ground
- to stockpile
- to clear, thin, fell, scarify, plant, sow or undertake any other forestry work
- to damage growing or dead, standing or fallen trees and bushes, to dig upp or pick herbs, mosses, fungi and lichens
- to drive a motor vehicle
Lind
Tilia cordata
The tree known as Storsvedsbästan has been famous ever since the eighteenth century. When the naturalist Carolus Linnaeus visited Dalarna in 1734, he wrote that even the smallest child knew where the tree was. He also reported that people in the district called the tree
an elm, and some of them believed that it flowered only when major changes occurred in Sweden. Just before the death och King Karl XII, the tree was said to have borne black and white flowers! Linnaeus, however, observed that it was an ordinary lime tree (linden) and concluded that limes are rare this far north. At the time of Linnaeus´ journey, Storsveden was meadowland, and it was not until the twentieth century that the local people stopped making hay here.
In a written account from the 1930s the tree is described as a lime with two trunks. The main trunk had a circum-ference of two metres at the root and was about twenty metres high. The boughs and leaves were healthy, even though the tree was hollow, with many woodpecker holes.
Roughly half a metre from the main trunk was a thinner trunk which grew to the same height but was only about 90 cm thick at the root.
The lime is a broad-leaved deciduous tree that thrives in fresh, nutrient-rich, stony humus. It occurs infrequently in Dalarna as far as Mount Hykjeberget in Älvdalen. The northernmost occurrence of the lime is on south-facing slopes where the local climate is much more favourable than in surrounding areas. The overgrown meadowland surround-ing Storsvedsbästan is very rich in flower species, with orchids such as lady´s slipper (Cypripedium calceolus ),
early marsch orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata), and fragrant orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea). This is due to the special conditions; the soil is fertile, rich in lime, and also damp.
Lady´s slipper
Cypripedium calceolus