From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Doubtless this is one of our rarest sunflowers. In 1930 I found a colony in an old woods pasture in Marshall County and Miss Madge McKee found it in a prairie habitat along the railroad near Goodland, Newton County. There are a few reports of it from the state but the species of sunflowers were not well understood by our earlier authors so that it is best not to rely upon them. I transplanted the specimen I found and it is still growing vigorously. Watson, who visited me, said it was the first wild specimen he had ever seen and writes that it is rare.