Often found in island maquis woodlands together with rockrose, heather, phillyrea, buckthorn, viburnum, arbutus, myrtle, broom and holm oaks. It is a wide-ranging heliophilous, thermophilous and xerophilous Mediterranean plant, growing from the Canaries to Anatolia and from sea level up to an altitude of 600 metres. In Italy, it is found throughout the peninsula with the exception of the northern regions and is highly adaptable in terms of terrain, favouring siliceous soils.

This evergreen shrub grows 1 to 3 metres tall and can sometimes reach the size of a small tree at heights of up to 4-5 metres. In more isolated and windy locations, lentisk has the typical globular shape of a rounded bush, resembling a big cushion, also prostrating itself to reach right down to the sea, unaffected by the salt carried on the wind. Its sturdy roots enable it to thrive even during the hottest summers, when other species have a distressed and discoloured appearance. Its structure varies in specimens growing in dense maquis or undergrowth, becoming taller and les compact as it competes for the sunlight. Its bark is ash-coloured on the younger branches and reddish-brown on the trunk.

The leaves are alternate and compound, with two to six pairs of small, hairless, leathery ovate-lanceolate leaves with a full edge, dark green on the upper side and paler underneath. Their colour can redden during the coldest winter period. It is a dioecious plant, meaning that its female and male flowers, visible from March to May, grow separately on different plants and are, in any case, relatively inconspicuous, having no corolla.

Its fruit is more conspicuous, with reddish drupes appearing in summer, turning black when ripe, and decorating the foliage of the lentisk in autumn and winter. The lentisk is important from a forestry perspective due to its ability to recover from fires thanks to its considerable ability to re-sprout from the stump.