The less common of the two species of this genus present in Massachusetts, it occurs only in the western part of the state. This is an annual of wet habitats: stream banks, swamps, marshes, and seepages, fontana meaning "of springs" or "of water sources." The population was found in northern part of Comma Pond, the location mentioned for this species in Karen Searcy's work on the Greater Mount Holyoke Range (2008).