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Omø island came into existence more or less as the rest of Denmark since it consist of moraine deposits from the Ice Age. The deposits originate from a stationary line at the Great Belt glacier during the final melting phase. They turned into two separate islands: Skovbanke with its highest point 24 metres above sea level, and the southern island where Omø village lies today. The highest point here is 11 metres over sea level. The northern part of Denmark has risen since the Stone Age while the southern parts have been sinking. Omø is situated slightly to the north of the axis between these two parts of the country. This meant that the island has risen about 0,5 – 1m since the Stone Age which can be observed on the slopes along the south part of east coast which has now a narrow strip of foreland. The rising of the land led to the formation of Omø lake between two banks of deposit at south end of the shallow sound -Draget - and a similar one between Kirkehavn and Skovbanke. The lake has now an outlet through a man - made ditch south of Søgaard. The water level of the lake is regulated by a pumping plant which keeps the it below the sea level and enlarges the meadows around the lake.
Rising of land has has formed the low and completely flat marine foreland called ”Støvlen” (boot) or Mosen (bog). It is protected by the ditch dug in 1902 south of the lighthouse. The climate on Omø is quite interesting, since the island is situated in the part of Denmark with the lowest precipitation and the highest temperatures in summer, which makes the climate nearly subcontinental. |
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Sandy Beaches There are relatively few sandy beaches without pebbles; to the west of Kirkehavn, along Draget on the east coast and a small one at Revspidsen. These beaches with their sandy dunes are favoured by summer visitors. The dunes are forming around large tussocks of marram grass and lyme grass. Marram grass is found along the whole coastline while lyme grass grows only on the three sandy beaches. There are some tussocks of a cross between lyme grass and muontain smallweed – so called Baltic lyme grass - at Revspids. Mountain smallweed is very common on the western part of the island. There is some couch grass which becomes more common further into the edges of the sandy beaches. Sea kale, sea purslane, sea rocket and various kinds of oraches are found on the outer edges. Further on, the vegetation is dominated by couch grass, curly dock, biting stonecrop, bedstraw, wormwood, beach wormwood, sand sedge, spring groundsel and feral plants like asparagus and strawberry. There are on all three locations patches of sea holly, which is normally found on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The inner - and oldest - part of sandy beach vegetation consists of a.o. fescue grass, cocksfoot, meadow grass, burnet saxifrage and sea pink. |
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Stony beaches Since Omø originally consisted of two moraine knolls it is natural that most part of the coastline has stony beaches. Largest erratic boulders are found on the west coast by Kirkehavn and on the east coast by Skovklinten. The southern shores have series of banks of pebble deposit. Some of the most common pebble beach plants are sea purslane, sea kale, coltsfoot, sanque foil and toadflax. Additionally, field bindweed, biting stonecrop, catchfly and red fescue grow on the pebble banks. On the inner banks you can see buckhorn plantain, common cornsalad and scurvy grasses. Beach slopes The low slopes to the west of Kirkehavn are typical of the island. They are dominated by thickets of matrimony vine which can suffocate all other plants the same way as thickets of rugosa rose. On the edges of the thickets grow silver weed, dewberry and spiky form of Canada thistle. The slopes are steep in some places, and the moraine has a tendency to slide down during the winter. When the slopes become stationary they are taken over by various grasses and herbs. Dominating grasses are tall oat-grass, cocksfoot, couch grass and Canada bluegrass. In addition, one finds some of the most common plants in Denmark: common yarrow, common horsetail, mugwort, perenniel sow thistle, bedstraw, common knapweed and oxeye daisy. Patches of feral plants are found here and there.
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The largest and most beautiful cliffs can be seen along Skovbanke. They consist mainly of moraine clay with some layers of sand and gravel. Beneath the cliffs, a narrow stony strip gets flooded in stormy weather. The southern part of the cliffs is covered with thickets, herbs and grasses and is the most beatiful of them. The area in the middle has bare descents with thicket on top and the northern part has gentle overgrown slopes. The varied vegetation on these south-facing cliffs contains several interesting species. There are thickets of buckthorn, blackthorn, dog rose and bramble. These thorny bushes are difficult go past but sometimes one can find species such as littlepod false flax, corn cockle, squill and yellow chamomile. The most common grasses are Canada bluegrass, tall fescue, tall oat-grass, couch grass and orchard grass. During summer the cliff´s colours change according to which flowers are in bloom. There are yellow periods with coltsfoot, biting stonecrop, yellow bedstraw and mouse-ear hawkweed, blue periods with tufted vetch and common restharrow and finally a blanket of purple knapweed; all these dotted with thrift, field bindweed, mugwort, burnet saxifrage, cow parsley and upright hedge parsley. Above the cliffs is a thicket of elm, lilac, swedish mountain ash, apple tree, sour cherry and silver poplar. Some places have shelter planting of mountain pine, sitka spurce and a couple of sorts of poplars. The northern slope is the only place where you can find carline thistle and great mullein. |
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The Littorine bank on the eastern shore The low bank along Draget to Ørespids originates from the Stone Age and large areas are covered here with blackthorn and buckthorn. A typical plant as well is hollyhock mallow. A single spot of common chicory can be found here as well as by some of the island roads. Shore meadows There are well developed meadows along the north coast between Kirkehavn and Revspids, along the west coast from Lillemose towards the lighthouse and especially on the shore from the lighthouse to Ørespids. The meadows have come into excistence on series of partly irregular low banks on substratum of pebbles mixed with sand and seaweed. During the times this ashore-washed material has developed into a thin layer of raw humus. On dry summers they are parched but in the early summer they are rich with the rare plants of Omø.
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Excerpts, adapted from En naturhistorisk undersøgelse af Omø i Storebælt (A study of the natural history of Omø in the Great Belt), Natur og ungdom 1972 |
