A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Naturalia 5. (Szeged, 2009)

Summary

as big as beans. The main depot center is the side wall of the present bed of the streamlet, but the deposit spreads across the neighbouring lawns as well. Historical review Many people argued about the original vegetation of the Kiskunság sand ridge many times and they wondered what it was like. They made up several theories about how the human activity changed the characteristics of these ridges during the past thousand years. When the whole region (Kiskunság) and the fringe areas (the former flood areas of the river Tisza and the Danube) were evaluated, precise data were used, such as maps, unique documents or publications. The picture drawn up is very mosaic-like. Significant differences can be pointed out between the north and south parts' vegetations since the ruling of the kings of the Árpád dynasty. The countryside which lies to the south of Kecskemét is strikingly treeless. The reasons - besides the climatic conditions - are the following: the unfavourable water balance of the quicksand soils, the fluctuation of the underground subsoil water, the frequency of the extremes of climate and the human activity. When the human activity is mentioned, not only the different methods of land use are meant, but some extreme cases of conscious damages too. The main types of natural and near-natural habitats of the area Remainders of marsh-meadow and fenwood Only the marsh-meadow (Calamagrosti-Salicetum Cinereae), the white willow gallery forest (Salicion albae) and willow-silver poplar gallery forest (Salicetum albae-fragilis) can be considered natural tree community from the tree vegetations of this area. (One little patch of the latter can be found next to the lakes of the Ásotthalom turf mines.) A considerable part of fenwoods and marsh-meadows in Csongrád county (which were not of a great size even earlier) has been destroyed after the regulation of waterways in a way that there is no information on them whatsoever. Only five tiny patches of them have been left by now, these are the following: the remainder of Négyökrü Zsombó, the Bilicsi white willow forest and the fenwoods of Zsombó, of Pusztamérges and the ones along the Kőrös-ér. The latter is torn into many parts and it goes along from Ásotthalom Rívó up to the basin of the fishing lake of Kelebia in Bács-Kiskun county. Sand pusztas When Antal Balla (1778) made a survey map of the region, the Kiskunság estates of Szeged city were mainly dominated by sand dunes. On the above mentioned map there was a line of sandmounds next to the northern banks of the Kőrös-ér, which took a bend right up to Ottömös. Csórva and Kereset sandfields joined Ottömös back those days. By now almost nothing is left from these