Mont Lozère in a nutshell, (variant) Trail #14V

4 points of interest

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  Fauna

  The viviparous lizard

  Everybody knows the sun-loving common wall lizard. But another small lizard, the viviparous lizard, lives in the mountains, in the same environments that the common frog likes. Its belly is uniformly yellow or orange in females, dotted black in males. In the Cévennes, this lizard is found in peatbogs, near rivers, in meadows and heath moors and right up to the edge of beech forests. It never strays far from its home. Only love will push the male to cover 10 or 20 metres in search of a mate. As the species name indicates, the female gives birth to young that are fully formed and immediately independent. This reproductive strategy is much better adapted to the cold.

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  History

  The Knights Hospitaller

  "It is an enormous farm. From the 11th to the 14th century, some of its revenues were used to finance the fight against the Muslims. As of 1530, the order of the Knight Hospitallers (first headquartered at Saint John of Jerusalem, then on Rhodes), became the order of the Knights of Malta, Emperor Charles V having granted them the island of that name. At the time, there were another 257 commanderies of the Knights of Malta in France; all of them were sold during the French Revolution.

  For centuries, these monks and knights criss-crossed the “tundra” of Mont Lozère with their herds of sheep and horses bred for their brothers in the East. (…) These open spaces also provided them with precious fuel for the fire, plants for animal litter, game, etc.” (B. Matthieu, "Les chemins ont une histoire")

  Shortly before the shepherd’s hut you can see a Maltese cross carved into a standing stone. It is a boundary marker.

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  Flora

  Finiels summit

  The short-grass prairie consisting of a coarse grass species called matgrass adapts to harsh weather conditions at altitude. In the spring, wavy snow dunes form in some hollows; small heaps seek shelter behind shrubs. The Eurasian skylark, meadow pipit and common linnet already try to cross the summit by fluttering close to the ground. On the summit itself, some islands of callune (heather, which has the particularity of flowering first at altitude) and some blueberry plants manage, with great difficulty, to establish themselves. Boundary stones have Maltese crosses carved into them. In the 12th century, Baron de Tournel gifted land located on the southern slopes of Mont Lozère to the Knights of Saint-John of Jerusalem. In the 16th century, this order became the Order of the Knights of Malta. The commandery was set up at L'Hôpital and its land delimited by these boundary markers.

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  History

  The montjoies (cairns)

  The "small menhirs" called montjoies that mark out the path did not grow by themselves.... Or rather, their origins were so long ago that nobody remembers. No matter! Look at these boundary markers and imagine for a moment that you are a giant who, after reading Hansel and Gretel, finds himself caught in a tourmente (heavy snowstorm and fog). Wouldn’t you have had the idea of planting a few pointed pebbles two-and-a-half metres high to be able to find your way back?