This occurs mostly in grasslands and thin woods on base-rich uplands of the Gulf Coastal Plain and scattered localities from the Ozarks to southern Ridge & Valley. Both diploids (2n = 18) and tetraploids (2n = 36) have been reported from across its whole range (W). In Ky. the species is known only from outlying plants on roadsides in CALL (MUR), TRIG (along the Trace in LBL) and perhaps WARR (a coll. of T. Barnes along Petros-Browning Road). These sites are probably remnants of original open woodland or grassland, now virtually all cleared for farmland or grown into forest.