Chaste tree thickets

[Vitex agnus-castus] formations of temporary water courses and other humid sites within, mostly, the thermo-Mediterranean zone. They occur, though uncommonly, in Mediterranean southern and eastern Spain and in the Balearics; they are local and rare in eastern Provence, the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, Puglia, the gulf of Taranto, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and the Maltese Islands. They are frequent in Greece, particularly along the Ionian coasts, where they can constitute dense thickets, uncommon again in the Aegean archipelagoes and Crete. They extend to the southern Balkans, Crimea, Mediterranean Asia Minor, Anatolia and North Africa, including the northern Saharan regions.