Botanical Trail 2 "Around Bellevue"

Depart from the town of Gy, latitude 47.4033200 (N 47° 24’ 12”), longitude 5.8135400 (E 5° 48’ 49”)

• Borne No.1

• The reasoned mowing of the paths, promotes the growth of wild orchids that thrive on the limestone and sunny soils of the natural massif of the Gy Mountains. Starting in May, you can start to see the very first flowers.

• Borne No.2

• You can see many insects in this wood from the families of hymenoptera
• (bees, wasps, ants...), lepidopterans (butterflies), hemiptera (bugs, gendarmes, cicadas),
• beetles (scarabs, ladybugs, weevils...). Some of them also frequent
• limestone lawns and use orchid inflorescence as a food source, lookout or land
• , shelter from the elements, mating and laying site or resting perch.
• These animals can ensure, at random from their wanderings, the cross-breeding of orchids.

• Borne No.3

• Bellevue's limestone lawn covers about 30 hectares.
• It is a source of very significant plant diversity (trees, shrubs, grasses,
• flowering plants, mosses and lichens...) and a mosaic of flourishing micro landscapes
• (rocky slabs, shaved grass, bushes, tall grasses, forest edges...) favorable
• to the development of a multitude of pollinating insects... whose butterflies and
• their famous nectar tube.

• Borne No.4

• Here you are on the way to Chatoillenot. It runs along a dry valley with a slightly deeper and richer soil than on the limestone hillsides (Bellevue's lawn).
• It is more favourable to extensive and diverse agricultural practices: pastured grassland, viticulture,
• prairial orchards.
• These polycultures are disappearing in favour of intensive monocultures, which require heavy mechanization
• and excessive use of biocides. These processes have devastating and uncontrollable impacts on the microfauna of dry lawns. However, the death of insects means non-fertilization for plants and leads to their disappearance.

• Watch out for steep and slippery path

• Small stretch of way in the wood that is steep and the pebbles make it slippery! Take it easy,
• small fence passage, then you will find the way to Bellevue much flatter.