Primary cushion heaths of the high, dry mountains of the Mediterranean region and Anatolia, with low, cushion-forming, often spiny shrubs, in particular of genera Acantholimon, Astragalus, Erinacea, Vella, Bupleurum, Ptilotrichum, Genista, Echinospartum, Anthyllis, and various composites and labiates; secondary, zoogenic cushion heaths of the same regions, either downslope extensions of the high-altitude formations, and dominated by the same species, or specifically montane or steppic, often Genista-dominated in the Mediterranean region. Excluded are cushion-heaths of thermo-Mediterranean lowlands (F7.1, F7.2 and F7.3).
Astragalus sempervirens ssp. sempervirens, Astragalus sempervirens ssp. muticus, Astragalus sempervirens ssp. cephalonicus formations of the southern Alps, the eastern Pyrenees, Iberia, the Apennines and Greece, transitional between the alpine and subalpine heaths of unit F2.2 and the true Mediterranean hedgehog-heaths of unit F7.4.