Patrimonio de la Humanidad UNESCO - Hayedo de la Tejera Negra

Tejera Negra is a beech forest located in Cantalojas, in the northwestern corner of the province of Guadalajara (Spain). It is part of the Ayllón massif, at the eastern end of the Sistema Central. It is one of the southernmost beech forests in Europe. Together with two other beech forests, La Pedrosa in the province of Segovia and Hayedo de Montejo in the Community of Madrid, the Tejera Negra beech forest forms part of the example of the humid and wooded orchard that was once the Sistema Central, more specifically the Sierra de Ayllón. In 1974 the Tejera Negra beech forest was declared a natural site of national interest and in 1978 it was declared a natural park, which was extended in 1987. Since the creation of the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara Natural Park on 22 March 2011, it has been integrated within it, thus repealing its previous declaration as a natural park. In 2017, along with other beech forests in Spain and Europe, it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco as an extension of the primary beech forests of the Carpathian Mountains and other regions of Europe. The Tejera Negra beech forest grows on a shady slope of the Sierra de Ayllón, with a mountain climate and abundant rainfall throughout the year. Summers are mild and cool and winters are very cold, with snow from November to April. Temperatures vary between -14° and 23°. The main focus of interest in the park is the beech forest, one of the most southerly in the Iberian Peninsula, with an area of almost 400 hectares. These stands have survived, thanks to their strategic location in the most inaccessible places, to obtain firewood and charcoal, as well as to be cleared to create pastures for livestock. The Melojo and Scots pine also form wooded masses, mainly in sunny areas, the former naturally and the latter as a result of reforestation. It is also worth mentioning the presence of yew, holly and birch trees which, either in isolation or in small groups, dot those areas with higher humidity. Above these tree masses, only the shrub formations of heather, together with the sub-shrub formations of bilberry, creeping juniper and bearberry withstand the harsh conditions, protecting the soil where they grow from erosive phenomena. In the open spaces of beech, oak and pine forests we find thickets of retamoid leguminous plants such as black broom and white broom, together with pink heather and white heather up to two metres high. In places with poorer soils we find predominantly steppe. Finally, it is worth mentioning the important variety of fungi that grow in the beech forest, with a special mention for the bolete, with a thick, whitish to light brown stem and a brown cap with a brown cuticle that fructifies at the end of summer and during the autumn. Source: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayedo_...