The Green Forest (in

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

''Pădurea Verde'', in Hungarian ''Vadászerdő'', in

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

''Jagdwald'', the last two translated as "hunting forest") is an

urban forest Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of peop ...

located in northeastern

Timișoara Timișoara (, , ; , also or ; ; ; see #Etymology, other names) is the capital city of Timiș County, Banat, and the main economic, social and cultural center in Western Romania. Located on the Bega (Tisza), Bega River, Timișoara is consider ...

, covering an area of 724 ha (or 737 ha according to other sources). It is seen as Timișoara's green lung and is also an important recreation and leisure area.

History

The area has been inhabited since ancient times, proof of this being a

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; ; Latin: ) were a large confederation of Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Iranian Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe from about the 5th century BCE to the 4t ...

tomb of a woman discovered after archeological surveys in the forest in 1969. Over time, the forest was both a place of shelter and a source of food for the locals. During the peasant uprising of 1514,

György Dózsa György Dózsa (or ''György Székely'', Romanian: ''Gheorghe Doja''; – 20 July 1514) was a Székely man-at-arms from Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary who led a peasants' revolt against the kingdom's landed nobility during the reign ...

and his bands of peasants advanced towards the city hidden through the Green Forest. The cartographic data from 1723–1725 but also from 1776 show that in the 18th century there was a secular forest in this space. Under the Habsburgs, the forest was declared a hunting area reserved exclusively for the first governor of

Banat Banat ( , ; ; ; ) is a geographical and Historical regions of Central Europe, historical region located in the Pannonian Basin that straddles Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe. It is divided among three countries: the eastern part lie ...

Count Claude Florimond de Mercy Count Claudius Florimund de Mercy (1666 – 29 June 1734) was an Imperial field marshal, born at Longwy in Lorraine, now in France. His grandfather was the Bavarian field marshal Franz Freiherr von Mercy. Mercy entered the Austrian ar ...

(1732). He requested the restoration of a hunting pavilion erected in the forest during the Ottoman occupation. It was permanently guarded by six

hussar A hussar, ; ; ; ; . was a member of a class of light cavalry, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely adopted by light cavalry ...

s and Mercy's more than 100

greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a dog breed, breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Some are kept as show dogs or pets. Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-c ...

s. After 1753, when the civil administration was introduced in Banat, the forest became accessible to other senior officers. At that time, its area was almost double that of today. Half of the forest was cut down at the beginning of the 20th century, the land being transformed into arable land for the Hungarian colony established in the current Dumbrăvița commune. This is why the current Green Forest has an artificial character, being arranged for the first time in 1860 by the Hungarian Forest Service. Two other arrangements followed in 1894 and 1908. In the interwar period, the forest was a Royal Crown domain and was intended for pheasant, stag and deer hunting. The city's forest nursery was established in 1929. From the planting material produced in the forest nursery (oak, maple, elm, walnut, sycamore, linden, etc.) the National Revival Forest () took shape in 1937–1938. In 1954, the state made 150 ha of the forest available to the city for the establishment of a nature reserve and a recreational area. In 2020, the

Romanian Government The Government of Romania () forms one half of the executive branch of the government of Romania (the other half being the office of the President of Romania). It is headed by the Prime Minister of Romania, and consists of the ministries, variou ...

transferred 520 ha from Romsilva to the Timișoara City Hall for the arrangement of a forest park. Until 2020, the Timișoara City Hall managed 50 ha of the Green Forest.

Geography

The Green Forest is located in the northeastern part of Timișoara and its surface, measuring about 737 ha, is divided into 78 plots more or less square-shaped. The forest is crossed on a length of 2.6 km by Behela (tributary of the Bega River), which feeds, before entering the forest, the Dumbrăvița

artificial lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

, a place of leisure for tourists and fishermen.

Flora

The woody species that grow in the Green Forest are

pedunculate oak ''Quercus robur'', the pedunculate oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe and western Asia, and is widely cultivated in other temperate regions. It grows on soi ...

(''Quercus robur''),

hornbeam Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the family Betulaceae. Its species occur across much of the temperateness, temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names The common English name ''hornbeam'' derives ...

(''Carpinus betulus''), ash (''Fraxinus excelsior''), Tatar maple (''Acer tataricum''), field maple (''Acer campestre''), Turkey oak (''Quercus cerris''), linden (''Tilia'' sp.) and

black locust ''Robinia pseudoacacia'', commonly known as black locust, is a medium-sized hardwood deciduous tree, belonging to the tribe Robinieae of the legume family Fabaceae. It is native to a few small areas of the United States, but it has been widely pl ...

(''Robinia pseudoacacia''). The predominant species is ''Quercus'' sp. (69%), followed by ''Fraxinus excelsior'' (10%). 5% of the existing trees are aged between 101 and 120 years, 21% between 81 and 100 years, with 61- to 80-years-old trees predominating (41%). The shrub layer includes hawthorn (''Crataegus monogyna''),

blackthorn ''Prunus spinosa'', called blackthorn or sloe, is an Old World species of flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is locally naturalized in parts of the New World. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Basq ...

(''Prunus spinosa''), cornel (''Cornus mas'') and

privet A privet is a flowering plant in the genus ''Ligustrum''. The genus contains about 50 species of erect, deciduous or evergreen shrubs or trees, with a native distribution from Europe to tropical and subtropical Asia, and with one species each ...

(''Ligustrum vulgare''), while the herbaceous layer is composed of mosses and lichens and herbaceous plants. Among the flowers, worth mentioning is the narrow-leaved helleborine (''Cephalanthera longifolia''), a species of wild orchid rare in Romania's flora that blooms between April and June.

References

{{PlacesTimișoara Forests of Romania Parks in Timișoara Geography of Timiș County Urban forests