Sand beaches and dunes, gravelly and rocky shores; sandy oak and jack pine savannas; sandy fields, roadsides, railroad ballast, river banks, and prairies.

Partcularly common and characteristic of beaches, dunes, and rocky shores along the Great Lakes shores, but also somewhat weedy. There is great diversity in size of heads, nature and distribution of pubescence on the leaves and involucres, degree of lobing of the leaves (although the lobes are always very long and narrow), and the nature of the inflorescence, often a large terminal panicle with hundreds of heads. On the other hand, plants of exposed rocky sites on Lake Superior may be quite dwarfed. Nevertheless, our plants are apparently all subsp. caudata (Michx.) Hall & Clements.

The foliage is scarcely if at all aromatic, and variable as to pubescence. Collections with both involucres and leaves densely silky have been noted from Antrim and Keweenaw Cos.