Michigan is at the northeastern edge of the range of this species of mostly wet prairies, savannas, and prairie fens. Our collections are from fens, dry to wet prairies, sedge meadows, and moist open ground at borders of forests. First collected in 1838 by the First Survey in Cass and Kalamazoo Cos.

Showy and sometimes cultivated, collections from Mason and Mecosta Cos. are adventive, as is the Washtenaw Co. record from along a railway. Now sometimes also included in so called prairie plantings, and one mapped recent Kalamazoo collection is thought to be spreading from plantings. Collected as "Persisting ...about 20 years" in such a planting in Lenawee Co. (not mapped).

See comments under Heliopsis on possible confusion with that genus.