Chiavenna, Marmitte dei Giganti Natural Reserve

Marmitte dei Giganti is a natural reserve lying slightly over Chiavenna along river Mera. It is one of the various geomorphologic phenomena due to Quaternary glaciation. The streams, receiving the waters, deriving from the superficial melting of the glacier, have eroded the underlying rock, have dug strangely shaped holes and have rounded the stones so much, that they have got spherical.
Marmitte dei Giganti are about 40; their diameter size ranges from cm.8 to m.4 and their depth ranges from few centimeters to some meters. They were named after their appearance: they look like large and very smooth concave surfaces. A path enables you to admire the phenomenon closely and to observe other glaciation traces, such as striated spherical rocks called "montonate", erosion channels and erratic blocks, lying anywhere in the area. On some "montonate" some interesting archaeologic rupestrian inscriptions have been found.

PLANTS

In the surrounding area you can find well preserved high trunk woods, which are mainly made up of black hornbeams (Ostrya carpinifolia), Scotch firs (Pinus sylvestris), chestnuts (Castanea Sativa), birches (Betula alba) and larches (Larix decidua). In the thicket, on very steep slopes, you can find shrubby species, such as the arboreal heather (Erica arborea), the blackthorn (Prunus Spinosa), the bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and the butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus).