Roadsides, railroads, fields, sandy open ground, disturbed places. Usually considered native on prairies and dry soils from Wisconsin and Illinois westward. Collected in 1839 in Menominee Co. during the First Survey by Doughlass Houghton and George H. Bull, without habitat, but presumably from an oak savanna or prairie opening.  A collection by Don Henson in 1989 (MICH, UMBS) from a prairie opening along the Menominee River in Menominee Co. may be taken as confirming its continued presence as a native plant in that area. Otherwise, our occurrences are surely adventive from the west or escaped from cultivation, probably even a 1933 collection "On rail road embankment" in the city of Menominee. More than most, this species exemplifies the difficulty, especially with prairie plants, in assessing the nativity of populations, even as protecting native germplam is increasingly important . 

This is an even more variable species farther west, but our specimens also differ considerably in lobing (if any) of leaves, though our plants are apparently all subsp. ludoviciana [var. pabularis (A. Nelson) Fernald].