Šmerlis Guerrillas
Šmerlis Forest might seem unpretentious, “squeezed” between Jugla and Mežciems, and overgrown with trees and bushes, but natural scientists will quickly convince you that near the centre of Riga, it is impossible to find a nature site as biologically diverse as this one. In Šmerlis Forest, there are large numbers of notable pine trees as well as some exotic trees like a sweet chestnut, walnut tree, and many other noteworthy nature objects. From time to time, natural scientists visit Šmerlis Forest to see and re-measure the notable trees, and it is quite often that they find some pearl of nature there. We have been lucky to explore the forest together with Arnis Bērziņš, who is born in the Railroad-worker Hospital nearby in Biķernieki, and knows Šmerlis and Biķernieki forests like the back of his hand.
As for the beginnings of his fascination with tree research, Arnis tells us that, near his country house, at the foot of a dune, there was a forest of old pine trees his mum used to call a park, because it resembled a looked-after forest, with pathways, minimal undergrowth and beautiful landscapes. It was a background, but the particular impulse was the book by Guntis Eniņš entitled “Tree – a Natural Monument” published in series “Nature and We” in early 1982. It made Arnis think that the park was full of notable trees. Yes, there was something like that – the first measurements of pine trees taken in 1982 were 2.85, 2.82, 2.70 m in circumference (currently 3.11, 2.83 and 2.85 m – not all growing equally well, though), and a birch with 2.72 m (no longer there) in a remote village house, however, by the standards of 1982, the pine and birch trees had to be 3 metres in circumference to be considered notable.
“I was very enthusiastic – there had to be a three-metre pine somewhere in the neighborhood, and it had to be found.” And so I searched, and in August 1982, I found a 3.0-meter pine, it was near the place where the River Inčupe falls into the sea, in the forest between the present fuel station and the sea. I wrote a letter to one of the two tree-searching enthusiasts and initiators, Staņislavs Saliņš in Salaspils, at Latvian State Forest Research Institute “Silava” (the address found in Eniņš’ book) – and even received an answer. Unfortunately, in the winter of 1986/87, this pine tree broke. The official data submission procedure required the height of the tree. In 1982, the possibilities for measuring heights were nowhere close to the ones we know today. My instruments at the time: for a wooden circumference, a 1.5 tape measure and for the height, a long string with a nail for fixing it into the ground, rolled on folding ruler, and year-1955 camera “Zenith” with a known tangent of the angle of the lens opening at 0.55. I multiplied it with the measured distance till the tree, thus getting the height of the tree.”
Having turned immediately behind the fence of Kinostudija, we rush into the forest to measure the large pine tree next to the path. Arnis is equipped with a special tape measure, with a special tip that can be easily hitched to the uneven wooden bark. There is a navigation device with all the trees in the area, with a database. Thus, for example, we can read that the pine tree was first found in Christmas 1995, when its circumference was 2.52 m. By the way, the pine needs to reach the circumference of 2.50 m at a height of 1.30 m from the ground to be considered notable. Today, we measure the pine accompanied by singing blackbirds, and its circumference is exactly 2.71 m. Nearly a centimeter a year that Arnis admits is a good growth rate.
Near the pine, we see and re-measure the first tree untypical to the local flora, an acidide, most likely planted by employees of the neighbouring Kinostudija, and otherwise found in Latvia only on the Lithuanian border in the vicinity of Dunika, which is a distant edge of its distribution in the north-east. Here’s there is also the grey walnut, with leaves reminding a huge rowan tree and place of origin on the East Coast of USA.
Arnis says people tend to implement rather weird dendrological projects in Riga forests. Among the most vivid in recent times, Arnis recalls the path found in the Biķernieki forest, with at least 300 m of small chestnut trees planted along it. The zealous person planting the trees had not known that the chestnut needed humus-rich soils and the trees would never properly grow in Biķernieki sandy dune soil. Arnis says everybody needs something for the soul and then they decide to plant. The flowering shudberries all around are a proof that exotic plants don’t necessarily need human help, it is enough with birds or wind. Arnis knows that shudberries have grown so thick in a cluster of woods between the Pļavnieki and Ulbroka Cemetary that without a machete, you might not even think of going through them.
Arnis recalls an an interesting experience he had in Šmerlis Forest in 1991, when the head of the Dendrofloral Department of Salaspils Botanical Gardens, an outstanding Latvian dendrologist, Raimonds Cinovskis, sent Arnis to examine the very incredible information provided by the local forester about a chestnut found on one of the tracks. Arnis had invited his classmate, Rodžers Osis, with whom Arnis had walked all the forests around Riga together, and who is also interested in dendrology. The unlikely (but not the impossible) happened and the edible chestnut (Castanea sativa) was found! When they found what they had been looking for, they saw that the chestnut was growing in the shadows, was undergrown, its trunk damaged by wild animals and frost, and they did not forecast it to last long. However, the stubborn visitor from the parallel flow of time, as Arnis said, had other plans: it brought itself together and grew to unexpected size and health. It has three trunks and a height close to 13 meters. Apparently, the chestnut may also be very modest and the adjacent humid hollow, and the dune on the other side provides a very acceptable microclimate.
