Subalpine thermophile formations on often skeletal soils of the southern Alps, the Pyrenees and, very locally, the Central Massif and the Apennines.
Open, thermophile, stripped grasslands organized in ribbons retaining stony, almost bare steps on the adrets of the upper sub-alpine and lower alpine zones in the Pyrenees, formed by the hard, sharp-pointed, slippery, bright green, tufted Festuca eskia, sometimes associated with Carex sempervirens s. l.