Scarita Belioara is one of the oldest nature reserves in the country. The limestone plateau is 450 hectares big and lies at an altitude of 1300m.Special about the reserve is that plants from the last ice time survived and are growing together with Mediterranean plants from warmer periods. It is one of the only places where you find the golden eagle in the Apuseni mountains.
By many called the Scarita Belioara, "pearl of the Apuseni mountains” It is a small reservation on a mountain plateau. It is a very spectacular landscape with vertical limestone rocks, caves and grottos, open grassland and patches of forest. There are about 450 plants species. Interesting here is the mixture of arctic alpine plants with sub Mediterranean -Balkan species. The first flowers that appear after the snow in May are Gentiana verna and Gentiana nivalis, both sub-alpine plants that normally grow on higher grounds. In June there is Daphne cneorum, Gentiana clusii, Centaurea pinnatifida and Dryas octopetala flowering in a colorful mosaic. In summer there is the rare Balkan plant Saponaria bellidifolia that flowers together with the arctic Arctostaphyllos uva-ursii, a relict that grows here at its most southern place. There is the sub-alpine orchid Nigritella that grows further nowhere else in the Apuseni Mountains. There are the endemic plants rubra Aquilegia subscaposa, Centaurea reichenbachioides, Dianthus spiculifolius, and Dianthus simonkaianus. In autumn flowers the Aster alpinus, Sorbus dacica.