NVC community W2 is one of the woodland

Woodland and scrub communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system

This article gives an overview of the woodland and scrub communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.-Introduction:The woodland and scrub communities of the NVC were described in Volume 1 of British Plant Communities, first published in 1991.In total, 25 woodland/scrub...

 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 seven woodland communities in the NVC classed as "wet woodland

Wet woodland

Wet woodland is a biodiversity habitat in the United Kingdom.This is a woodland that occurs on poorly drained or seasonally wet soils. They are typical of river valley, the surroundings of mires and raised bog, the transition zones between open water and drier ground, and beside small winding...

s".

This is a fairly locally distributed community. There are two subcommunities.

Community composition

Three constant species is found in this community, Grey Willow (Salix cinerea), Downy Birch

Downy Birch

Betula pubescens is a species of birch, native and abundant throughout northern Europe, Iceland, northern Asia and also Greenland....

 (Betula pubescens) and Common Reed (Phragmites australis).

Six rare species are also associated with the community:

• Elongated Sedge (Carex elongata)
• Crested Buckler-fern (Dryopteris cristata)
• the fern Dryopteris × uliginosa, the hybrid of Crested Buckler-fern and Narrow Buckler-fern (D. carthusiana)
• Milk-parsley (Peucedanum palustre)
• Round-leaved Wintergreen (Pyrola rotundifolia)
• Marsh Fern (Thelypteris palustris)

Distribution

This community is distributed in two main areas of Britain - East Anglia

East Anglia

East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...

 and Northwest England. There are also examples in South Wales

South Wales

South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...

 and Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

Subcommunities

There are two subcommunities:

• the Alnus glutinosa - Filipendula ulmaria subcommunity
• the Sphagnum ssp. subcommunity