This is widespread across eastern North America, usually in thin woods and edges on damp base-rich soil. In Ky. it is generally concentrated in low woods along streams, where subject to flooding and browsing. Rarely, it also survives in remnants of native vegetation on damp uplands. See key in W to all eastern species of Zizia and Thaspium; species of these closely related genera are often confused, and form a core of the "perennial North American clade" (Downie et al. 2010). These are two of the more diverse genera in Apiaceae of eastern North America, yet no verified hybrids between species are known within them or between them, despite all sharing the same chromosome number (2n = 22 as in most Apiaceae) and flowering in similar seasons. Medicinal and edible uses have been reported, but definitive information is lacking; shoots are celery-like but more sharp-tasting, perhaps due to dihydro-furanocoumarins (Berenbaum 1981). G. Deane has stated (at eattheweeds.com in 2020): "The flower clusters with the main stem removed are added to salads, or they make a delicious cooked vegetable reminiscent of broccoli. In Eurasia a related species, Smyrnium olusatrum, Black Lovage, was cultivated as a vegetable, gradually replaced by celery."