This occurs mostly in the central and lower Mississippi watershed, and along the Gulf Coast. It typically occurs in grazed or infrequently mowed grassland on seasonally dry base-rich soils. A. viridis may be one of the most toxic milkweeds in Ky. There is a recent report of several sheep dying after eating the plant (Smith et al. 2000). Although this species has been treated in subgenus Asclepiodora, the genus will need substantial revision after recent molecular work is developed into a new taxonomy (Fishbein et al. 2018).