This species was once thought to be distributed across northern Africa, the northern Mediterranean region in Italy and Greece, and the eastern Mediterranean region. As now understood, the species is restricted to North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, c.f. Peri 2015; Plants of the World Online Portal, Board of Trustees, RBG Kew 2020). Previous records from the eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Egypt (Sinai)) were due to taxonomic confusion with L. bicolor, whilst records from Crete refer to L. spreitzenhoferi and those from Italy refer to L. gussonei.