Pioneer and subclimax Betula pendula or Betula pubescens formations of the North Sea-Baltic plains, the lower Hercynian slopes, the periphery of the Paris Basin, southwestern France, northwestern Iberia, Insubria and Illyria, within the range of Atlantic and sub-Atlantic acidophilous oak woods.
Formations usually formed by Betula pendula, or, in the British Isles, Betula pubescens, with Deschampsia flexuosa, Agrostis capillaris (Agrostis tenuis), Festuca ovina, Vaccinium myrtillus, developed notably on sands, gravels, moraines and decalcified alluvions of nemoral northern and middle European plains and hills, as substitution facies of acidophilous oak woods (Fago-Quercetum, Blechno-Quercetum petraeae, Rusco-Quercetum, Luzulo-Quercetum), occasionally of oak-hornbeam woods (particularly mixed Atlantic bluebell oak forests, Endymio-Carpinetum), or colonization stages of dry heaths and decalcified dunes.