This globally rare, southeastern species occurs only east of the Mississippi, mostly on the Piedmont, other Appalachian foothills, and the southern Interior Low Plateaus, with few outliers on the Coastal Plain (K, W). Although it is known from several scattered sites across Ky., most records are historical. It persists along rights-of-way and other stable edges, spreading locally from unevenly thickened branching roots. Short (1840) noted: "in the thin oak lands of the barrens." The only confirmed post-1970 records are from a cluster of sites on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau in MCRE (Palmer-Ball et al. 1988) and PULA (several confirmed iNaturalist images), plus some recent images made in CALD (confirmed from iNaturalist). The species has also been found close to the state line in eastern Va. near Cumberland Gap (K).