This winter-annual is widespread across southeastern states, Mexico and Calif. It has similar ecology to the aliens, Cardamine hirsuta and (with entire leaves), Draba verna and Arabidopsis thaliana. See FNA 7 and Y for notes on generic placement. P. virginica was generally confused with C. hirsuta in early literature (perhaps = C. hirsuta var. virginica of Torr. & Gray 1838). In the central Bluegrass, Short (1828-29, see also PH) noted: "Cardamine virginica? This little plant excites no other interest than that arising from the early period at which it blooms; being here, as the Draba verna in the Eastern states, the earliest harbinger of spring... In cultivated fields abundant; flowering from the middle of February. ...towards the last of February..." Planodes differs from Cardamine as follows (FNA 7, W): base of plant pubescent (versus glabrous); replum [tissue separating valves] terete (versus strongly flattened), the valves not coiled or dehiscing elastically (versus coiled, dehiscing elastically); seeds winged (versus not so).