Dry open usually sandy ground, including fields, roadsides, and river banks; oak and oak-hickory forests.

Even if flower color and fruit are unknown, this species can be easily recognized by the ± dense pubescence on the stems and both surfaces of the leaves. No other species in our area with oblong-elliptic leaves has so much pubescence or the flowers in such dense heads. Both this species and L. capitata can be distinguished from our common purple-flowered herbaceous species by the dense heads and the spreading pubescence of the stems. Pubescence, if any, is appressed on the stems of L. frutescens, L. violacea, and L. virginica; only the rare and prostrate L. procumbens has spreading pubescence on the stem. (See also comments on L. × nuttallii under L. violacea.)