The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched eastward from the Rhine River across southern Germany and formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of antiquity. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east it extended. All agree that the Black Forest, which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian.
Across the Rhine to the west extended the Silva Carbonaria and the forest of the Ardennes. All these old-growth forests of antiquity represented the original post-glacial temperate broadleaf forest ecosystem of Europe.
Relict tracts of this once-continuous forest exist with many local names: the Schwarzwald ("Black Forest"), Odenwald, Spessart Rhön, Thüringerwald (Thuringian Forest), Harz, Rauhe Alb, Steigerwald, Fichtelgebirge, Erzgebirge, Riesengebirge, the Bohemian Forest, and the forested Carpathians. The Mittelgebirge seem to correspond more or less to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains.
Read more about Hercynian Forest: Etymology, Ancient References, Modern References
Famous quotes containing the word forest:
“How old the world is! I walk between two eternities.... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don’t want to die!”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)