Plant Life

The nature reserve's flora is adapted to regular flooding. Yellow iris, great yellowcress, and purple loosestrife blossom in the reed beds along Urdenbach's Old Rhine and around the Baumberg pond. In early spring you may discover the large, bright yellow flowers of the rare marsh spurge along the ditches, a typical plant for wetlands on the margins of great rivers.
In spring the low-lying wet meadows are covered in the bright pink flowers of ragged robin. Another type of wet meadow, now very rare, requires regular inundation for characteristic species such as pepper saxifrage and burnet to flourish. The hay meadows on slightly higher ground are mowed twice a year and from spring to late summer present a colourful picture full of wildflowers. Before the first leaves appear on the trees in early spring, lesser celandines and wild garlic grow in the riparian woodlands. In late summer the edges of the paths are brightened by the purple flowers of the Himalayan balsam, a non-native species or neophyte introduced through human cultivation.