This widespread southeastern species is typical of submesic to subxeric woods in Ky. It is locally abundant along trails and in association with dense populations of deer, who presumably disperse the seeds and avoid browsing on the foliage. It has had diverse medicinal uses, like other species in the genus (Moerman 2009), but it is generally avoided by mammalian herbivores due to its irritating hairs and perhaps its pyrrolizidie alkaloides (Roeder et al. 2015). The North American species of "Cynoglossum" have recently been shown to deserve distinct generic names, based on indisputable phylogenetic evidence, and the unpalatable name Andersonglossum has unfortunately been erected for virginianum, boreale and occidentale (Cohen 2015).