This is small winter or spring annual lawn weed that is a widespread native across central Europe, especially on sandy or gravelly soils. It has become scattered through southeastern states but remains easily overlooked. The name A. microcarpa (Boissier & Reuter) Rothmaler has been misapplied to this species in North America (FNA 9, W); A. australis was first described from a 1898 coll made in Washington D.C. The first Ky. coll. was made in 1994 from mowed ground in MADI (Abbott et al. 2001). Subsequent records came from CALL (Poindexter & Thompson 2008), JEFF and WASH (herbarium of Ind, Univ. SE); it appears to be spreading rapidly in western regions of the state (APSC).