This occurs mostly on sandy soils in Appalachian and mid-Atlantic regions, from Me. to Ga., plus scattered localities in the Great Lakes region. It is locally common in thin disturbed woods and along trails on Pine Mt. (especially HARL and LETC). The disjunct coll. by the Brownes #5686 (EKY) from TODD (steep wooded SW-facing slope, Ky 181 2.6 mi S of Ky 107) is one of only two records from the Interior Low Plateaus. The other is from Maury Co. of c. Tenn. (Ch). A globally endangered butterfly, the "frosted elfin" (Callophrys irus) is specialized for feeding on this plant species and (further north) Lupinus perennis; other occasional food-plants are B. australis and Crotolaria sagittalis (Shepherd 2005). B. tinctoria--and to some extent other species of the genus--has a long history of uses for dying and diverse toxicological or medicinal purposes. But relevant phytochemical literature, including early accounts, does not appear to have been comprehensively reviewed (e.g. Emerson 1904, Gibson 1968, Wack et al. 2005, Sujata & Kumar 2017, Sultanov et al. 2022). It would be useful to explore relationships between chemistry, toxicity and herbivory across the genus; see also Gibbons et al. (1990), Anderson et al. (2015), Naser et al. (2016).