Vejsplachy Natural Monument: Exploring Protected Floodplain Forest Geography and Habitat Maps

The vegetation of Vejsplachy was first described by the Czech botanist Ladislav Josef Čelakovský in his Prodromus of the Czech Flora, evidence that the locality was already recognized as botanically interesting in the nineteenth century. Historical management shaped the site in ways that are still visible today: the meadows were traditionally mown for hay, and the repeated passage of farm machinery across the soft ground created shallow tůně, small ephemeral pools that have gradually filled in but remain a recognizable feature of the landscape.

In the years leading up to protection, land use shifted. Hay was no longer taken from the meadows in the usual way, and cut biomass was increasingly left on the site rather than removed, while part of the area saw unofficial dumping of waste. The small floodplain forest meanwhile developed largely on its own through natural succession. These changes prompted local conservation authorities to formalize the site's status.

On 20 February 2020, the Královéhradecký Regional Authority declared Vejsplachy a přírodní památka, a category of natural monument under Czech nature conservation law. The designation was made to safeguard the habitats and the protected and threatened species that occur there, and to ensure the maintenance of viable populations into the future.

The landscape at Vejsplachy is gentle and flat to very gently sloping toward the pond, with elevation ranging only between about 469 and 476 meters above sea level. It lies in the Hostinská pahorkatina, a minor geomorphological district within the broader Krkonoše foothills, where Paleozoic bedrock is masked by slope sediments and old river deposits of sand and gravel.

The defining visual feature is not elevation but the structure of the ground: a fine-grained mosaic of wet meadow, ash-alder floodplain forest, and water. The Vejsplachy rybník, a small traditional pond, forms the northern edge of the protected area, while shallow, slowly infilling pools scattered through the meadows add further texture. The result reads as a small, self-contained floodplain landscape, almost enclosed within the suburban edge of Vrchlabí, but ecologically reminiscent of much larger river floodplains further upstream.

Ecologically, Vejsplachy is a textbook example of how a tiny site can pack several distinct wetland habitats into a single protected parcel. The dominant habitat is an ash-alder floodplain forest of the valley-floor type, with ash and alder as characteristic canopy species and a ground layer adapted to periodically wet, nutrient-rich conditions. Beneath the trees, the soil remains saturated for long periods, producing gleys rather than better-drained mineral soils.

Beyond the forest, wet thistle meadows cover roughly a third of the area, interspersed with smaller patches of mesophilic oat meadows on slightly drier ground, and eutrophic reedbeds along the pond shore. These habitats form a gradient from open water through reed and meadow to closed forest, and within just a few hundred meters they expose the visitor to a wide range of botanical communities. The seasonally fluctuating shallow pools increase the variability further, by producing transient, unpredictable microhabitats favored by particular invertebrates.

The flora that depends on this mosaic is significant in Czech conservation terms. May orchid, spring snowflake, bogbean, and snake's head fritillary all occur within the protected site, with two of the bulbous species having been introduced inadvertently from neighboring gardens. The combination of permanently moist meadows, transitional reed zones, and shaded forest edge creates the structural complexity that these species require to persist in a landscape that has otherwise been intensively altered.

Fauna at Vejsplachy is closely tied to the wetland and floodplain habitats that dominate the site. The most notable animal is the large blue butterfly, a species of European conservation concern that is highly dependent on wet meadows with the right host plants and humidity conditions. Its presence here is one of the principal reasons the locality received formal protection.

Amphibians are represented by the common toad, which breeds in the still waters of the pond and the smaller pools. Reptiles include the grass snake, which uses both the water margins and the meadow-forest transition zone. Birdlife includes the spotted flycatcher, a species associated with mature open woodland and woodland edges, while the red squirrel inhabits the ash-alder canopy. Together these observations confirm that the small site supports a functioning community of forest, meadow, and wetland species, even though individual populations are necessarily limited by the area's compact size.

Vejsplachy was designated as a přírodní památka in 2020 specifically to maintain the integrity of its habitat mosaic and the threatened species that depend on it. The formal subjects of protection include reedbeds of eutrophic standing waters, mesophilic oat meadows, wet thistle meadows, and the ash-alder floodplain forest that covers about two thirds of the site, together with all specially protected and endangered species recorded there.

The conservation aim is to keep these habitats in a favorable condition and to maintain viable populations of their characteristic species over the long term. This implies continued attention to water regime, to management of the meadows, and to preventing further degradation from waste dumping or abandonment, both of which have affected the locality in the recent past. In a regional context, Vejsplachy represents one of the small but ecologically important surviving floodplain remnants in the Krkonoše foothills and contributes to the broader network of Czech small-scale protected sites that aim to preserve biodiversity outside the larger national parks.

The locality is intertwined with the long rural history of the Vrchlabí area, where floodplain soils have been exploited for haymaking for centuries. The shallow pools scattered across the meadow are a direct legacy of that mechanical mowing tradition, an inadvertent product of farm equipment passing over soft ground. At the same time, abandonment of hay harvesting and the use of part of the land as an informal dump illustrate the more recent pressures on traditional floodplain landscapes in populated Czech regions.

Vejsplachy stands out for the surprising density of habitats packed into a 3.34 hectare footprint: ash-alder floodplain forest, wet thistle meadows, mesophilic oat meadows, reedbeds, and small ephemeral pools all within a short walk. It supports both rare orchids and a nationally important population of the large blue butterfly. The site is also a remarkable example of small-scale, locally led floodplain conservation right at the edge of the town of Vrchlabí.

Late spring and early summer are the most rewarding period at Vejsplachy, when the wet meadows come into flower with May orchids, spring snowflakes, and snake's head fritillaries, and the large blue butterfly is on the wing. Early mornings in this season are particularly favorable for observing both flora and butterfly activity, while autumn visits can still be productive for birdlife and forest character in the ash-alder stand.