The shrub has a scattered distribution from the Burra Gorge and Bordertown area in South Australia, through to the Little Desert and Dimboola in Victoria where it is found on rocky hills as a part of scrub or Eucalyptus woodland communities.

The population in Victoria is scattered in about 100 woodland sites, located in southern Wimmera, south-west of Horsham and north of Nhill.

[6] In South Australia, the species is associated with hopbush (Dodonaea viscosa), clammy daisy bush (Olearia decurrens) and pale turpentine bush (Beyeria lechenaultii) on light sandy loams, or needle wattle (Acacia carneorum), golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha) and kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) on skeletal soils with outcropping shales.

Most of the remaining sites are small, fragmented, and vulnerable to disturbance, within degraded and weedy vegetation, providing little opportunity to expand the population.

Threats to the species include inappropriate fire regimes, weed invasion, lack of regeneration, erosion, agricultural chemical spray drift, roadworks, and grazing by introduced herbivores or domestic stock.