The area of this mountain is administratively divided among several municipal territories, such as: Ascoli to the south; Appignano del Tronto to the southeast; Castignano to the northeast; Rotella to the north; Force to the northwest; and Palmiano and Venarotta to the west.

The cliff named after the saint is located at the top of the relief, at an elevation of 1098 m, just below the summit and, with its rocks, it plunges sheer into the woods below with a drop of about 150 m.[7] The vegetation covering this floristic area consists of typical mountain tree species, such as: coppice, manna ash, hornbeam, maple, rowan, holm oak, beech, and alternating pasture areas and rocky outcrops.

A wide variety of flowers grows in the grassland areas, such as: sweet woodruff, spurge-laurel, annual mercury, common hepatica, orange lily, columbine and belladonna.

[11] It is a tradition in the Ascoli area to make pilgrimages to the Mount, on the occasion of the Feast of the Ascension, a holiday (also present in many other parts of Italy) related to ancient water-related purification rites.

The term "black" was probably referable to the presence of a rich and dense forest vegetation, consisting of holm oaks and chestnut trees, which covered its northern slope, giving the walls a darker color than that of the surrounding hills and a "dark and mysterious appearance.

[14] Mount Polesio - (Mëndagna dë Pëliesce, in Ascolano dialect)[2] - The name "Montis Polesii" or "Polexii" is mentioned in documents bearing dates of the 12th and 13th centuries.

A further interpretation leads back to the Latin word "paulus," which means small, but in past times identified the wooden stone that proselytes of naturalistic rites fixed on the top of mountains.

[14] Bartolomeo Palucci, a historian and religious scholar from Ascoli, identifies the origin of the name Polesio (Pëliesce) in the phonetic deformation of the Greek lemma "pelex" meaning jagged ridge, a description that would correspond to the morphology of the relief, which has about 10 peaks.

[16] This belief gave rise to the custom on the part of pilgrims to carry a stone, taken from among the pebbles and gravel of the Chiaro Creek, and leave it as a tribute to the saint on the crevice that allegedly hid her.

[18][17][19] Also according to legend, it is reported that the noise one hears as one leans over the cliffs or rests one's ear on the rocks at the summit of the mountain corresponds to that of the shuttle of chicks chirping and the loom of Saint Polisia, working the fabric for her "wedding dress with the Divine Bridegroom.