Both sexes have white fringe. Males patrol near the host plants for females. Eggs are laid singly on flower buds and young leaves of the host plants.
Caterpillars feed on flowers, seedpods, and young leaves and are tended by ants.
Nectar from flowers including Asteraceae. A variety of locations including open woods, coastal dunes, prairies, meadows, road edges, rocky moist woods, and brushy fields. Along northern United States east to Nova Scotia and south to Georgia. Subspecies palosverdesensis is thought to be extinct. Its historic range and its hostplant Astragalus leucopsis in the Palos Verdes Hills in Los Angeles County, California is largely extirpated, but an additional population was discovered in nearby San Pedro.