Within Ky. this southern Appalachian species is known only from xeric sandy soils in the southern Cliff Section (Palmer-Ball et al. 1988). In addition to rocky ridges and clifftops, its habitats include "boulder-bars" along Big South Fork of Cumberland Rv. and other tributaries, where plants have unusually narrow leaves. It has peak flowering usually in Aug-Sep. Records from MENI and WARR are unverified and dubious (M). The name L. graminifolia Willd. was misapplied to these plants in some older literature from Ky. Also, reports of graminifolia from FLEM (MO) and ROWA (MDKY) were apparently based on misidentified spicata or erroneous label data (Campbell et al. 1992). L. graminifolia is now considered a synonym of L. pilosa (Ait.) Willd., which occurs mostly on the Atlantic Coastal Plain and Piedmont, but does extend into the moutains of W.Va. (W).