The class Crypsietea aculeatae includes species-poor stands of annual graminoids supported by saline habitats. This vegetation type is typical of the surroundings of lakes with saline water in the steppe zone of eastern Europe and in the Pannonian lowlands. As the water level in the lakes drops during summer, wet saline soil on the exposed bottom at their edges is colonized by Crypsis aculeata, Cyperus pannonicus, Heleochloa schoenoides and other species. In late summer and early autumn the soil can dry out considerably. In late winter and spring the site is flooded again; the vegetation of the following year regenerates from the seed bank after the new exposure of the bottom.