Native in the southeastern United States. Occasionally spreading from cultivation (usually in vegetative clones) to roadsides, forested dunes, disturbed ground, and sites near habitations. First collected in 1906 in Van Buren Co.

The stipels are as long as the petiolules or slightly longer, more conspicuous in this species than in our other two. This is shrubby in habit, often only 2-3 m tall, and very showy.