Much more fundamental is the smaller-scale habitat, such as steep rocky cliff, densely-shaded moist bank, open gravelly area, spring or seep, vernal pool, mud flat, tidal basin. The smaller-scale habitat is much more predictive.
Example: a densely-shaded moist bank can occur in zillions of plants communities, from the desert to the sea to the mountains. You can pretty much bet that you'll find miner's lettuce, Claytonia sp., on many of those banks anyplace. Knowing which plant community you are in doesn't tell you anything about whether miner's lettuce is in that community or not.
http://tchester.org/srp/plants/communities/26.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Last update: 6 November 2005.