Can colonise sporadically on a very varied range of soils, even fen peat and chalk, but is much more at home on southern English sands than anywhere else, except in old Scottish pine forests. In south-east England and some areas of Scotland, pine woods tend towards sandy and gravely soils, poor in nutritive salts and generally acidic. They also are not excluded by calcareous soils, for example they are characteristic of the poor marls of the French Champagne region and the southern English chalk. On better, loamy soils they have a tendency to give way to other trees. Today, pine only occurs in abundance on heaths (Tansley, 1939). In England the present dominance is on lighter and drier soils, commonly forming a stage in the succession to the climax condition of conifer forest, as the pre-climax to spruce (Clapham, et al. 1964).