This alliance includes rare, natural, open vegetation occurring rarely in the Pannonian region on steep loess slopes, e.g. in the concave, sunken dirt roads and surroundings of wine cellars in rural, loess areas. It contains species considered as relicts of the Pleistocene cold loess steppes, e.g. Agropyron pectinatum. Kochia prostrata and Krascheninnikovia ceratoides. These species are poor competitors that can grow only in open vegetation; they retreated from most localities due to formation of dense steppe in the wetter climate of the Holocene. The geographical range of this alliance extends from its westernmost limit in southern Moravia and Lower Austria through steppe and forest-steppe areas of south-eastern Europe to southern Russia. From the syntaxonomical point of view this association is transitional between the classes Artemisietea vulgaris and Festuco-Brometea.