NVC community H6 is one of the heath

Heaths in the British National Vegetation Classification system

This article gives an overview of the heath communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.-Introduction:The heath communities of the NVC were described, along with the mire communities, in Volume 2 of British Plant Communities, first published in 1991.In total, 22 heath...

 communities in the British National Vegetation Classification

British National Vegetation Classification

The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying natural habitat types in Great Britain according to the vegetation they contain....

 system. It is one of five communities categorised as lowland dry heaths.

It has a very localised distribution in southern England. There are four subcommunities.

Community composition

The following constant species are found in this community:

• Brown Bent (Agrostis vinealis)
• Glaucous Sedge (Carex flacca)
• Bell Heather (Erica cinerea)
• Cornish Heath
  Cornish heath
  The Cornish heath is a species of heath that bears pink flowers and mid-green foliage. This is a shrub, reaching 0.75 m by 0.75 m. Its English name comes from the fact that, in Great Britain, it is only found on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, where the unusual geology gives rise to the alkaline...
  
   (Erica vagans)
• Meadowsweet
  Meadowsweet
  Filipendula ulmaria, commonly known as Meadowsweet, is a perennial herb in the family Rosaceae that grows in damp meadows. It is native throughout most of Europe and Western Asia...
  
   (Filipendula ulmaria)
• Common Gorse
  Common Gorse
  Ulex europaeus, gorse, common gorse, furze or whin is an evergreen shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to western Europe from the northerly point of the United Kingdom south to Portugal, and from the westerly point of the Republic of Ireland east to Galicia in Poland and Ukraine.-Description:It...
  
   (Ulex europaeus)
• Western Gorse (Ulex gallii)
• Common Dog-violet (Viola riviniana)

A number of rare species are associated with the community: Bristle Bent (Agrostis curtisii), Chives

Chives

Chives are the smallest species of the edible onions. A perennial plant, they are native to Europe, Asia and North America.. Allium schoenoprasum is the only species of Allium native to both the New and the Old World....

 (Allium schoenoprasum), Cornish Heath

Cornish heath

The Cornish heath is a species of heath that bears pink flowers and mid-green foliage. This is a shrub, reaching 0.75 m by 0.75 m. Its English name comes from the fact that, in Great Britain, it is only found on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, where the unusual geology gives rise to the alkaline...

 (Erica vagans), Dwarf Rush (Juncus capitatus), Spring Squill (Scilla verna) and Twin-headed Clover (Trifolium bocconei).

Subcommunities

There are four subcommunities:

• the so-called typical subcommunity
• the Festuca ovina subcommunity
• the Agrostis curtisii subcommunity
• the Molinia caerulea subcommunity