[4] The plant is native to eastern North America, from southeastern Nova Scotia (especially the Molega Lake area)[5] and Massachusetts in the north, south to Florida and Cuba, and west along the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana.

[6] It prefers wet, acidic, usually sandy soils, restricting it to various wetland habitats such as bogs, pinelands, hammocks and pocosins, among others.

Its flowers, consisting of six pale yellow tepals, emerge from mid to late summer.

The conservation decree allows the third name to be used in place of the second to refer to the plant now called Lachnanthes caroliana.

Comparison of homologous DNA has increased the insight in the phylogenetic relationships between the genera in the Haemodoroideae subfamily.