The species is native to the southeastern United States, where it is found primarily in Alabama and Georgia, with a disjunct population in South Carolina along the Savannah River.

[9] Aesculus parviflora is grown as an ornamental plant in gardens, where its August flowering attracts butterflies.

[8] The naturalist, explorer and plant collector William Bartram first noted this undescribed shrub on his travels through Carolina, Georgia and Florida in 1773–78.

[11] Aesculus parviflora was introduced to British horticulture through the activities of John Fraser, who made his first botanizing trip through the American South in 1785.

Fraser's finds were distributed among English nurserymen like Lee and Kennedy or Loddiges or to private patrons, and the shrub was "to be met with in most of our nurseries" by 1820.