It grows up to 4 m (13 ft) tall and is cultivated for its aromatic resin, mainly on the Greek island of Chios, around the Turkish town of Çeşme[2][3] and northern parts of Iraq.

Pistacia terebinthus is more abundant in the mountains and inland and the mastic is usually found more frequently in areas where the Mediterranean influence of the sea moderates the climate.

Pistacia lentiscus is native throughout the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula in the west through southern France and Turkey to Iraq and Iran in the east.

[5] In urban areas near the sea, where "palmitos" or Mediterranean dwarf palms grow, and other exotic plants, it is often used in gardens and resorts, because of its strength and attractive appearance.

It has been introduced as an ornamental shrub in Mexico, where it has naturalized and is often seen primarily in suburban and semiarid areas where the summer rainfall climate, contrary to the Mediterranean, does not affect it.

Originally liquid, it is hardened, when the weather turns cold, into drops or patties of hard, brittle, translucent resin.

The resin is collected by bleeding the trees from small cuts made in the bark of the main branches, and allowing the sap to drip onto the specially prepared ground below.

Some scholars[12] identify the bakha בכא mentioned in the Bible—as in the Valley of Baca (Hebrew: עמק הבכא) of Psalm 84—with the mastic plant.

[citation needed] In an additional biblical reference, King David receives divine counsel to place himself opposite the Philistines coming up the Valley of Rephaim, southwest of Jerusalem, such that the "sound of walking on the tops of the bakha shrubs" (קול צעדה בראשי הבכאים) signals the moment to attack (II Samuel V: 22–24).

An unflattering reference to mastic-chewing was made in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (published 1609) when Agamemnon dismisses the views of the cynic and satirist Thersites as graceless productions of "his mastic jaws".

[citation needed] As a spice, it continues to be used in Greece to flavour spirits and liqueurs (such as Chios's native drink mastiha), chewing gum, and a number of cakes, pastries, spoon sweets, and desserts.

[14] Mastic resin is a key ingredient in dondurma and Turkish puddings, giving those confections their unusual texture and bright whiteness.

First-century Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides wrote about the medicinal properties of mastic in his classic treatise De Materia Medica (About Medical Substances).

The trees are grown mainly in suburban areas in semiarid zones, and remain undamaged, although the summer rainfall is contrary to its original Mediterranean climate.

[citation needed] A related species, P. saportae, has been shown by DNA analysis [20] to be a hybrid between maternal P. lentiscus and paternal P. terebinthus (terebinth or turpentine).

[21] "Dufte-Zeichen" (Scents-signs), the fourth scene from Sonntag aus Licht by Karlheinz Stockhausen, is centred around seven scents, each one associated with one day of the week.