[5] The mineral occurs as equant to short prismatic crystals up to 2 cm (0.79 in), in sheaf-like or saddle-shaped aggregates, or as crusts.

[3] Zinc ions are surrounded by oxygen in a nearly perfect trigonal bipyramid and phosphate groups are tetrahedral.

[10] Several specimens of the mineral were collected by Percy Coventry Tarbutt, a director of the Broken Hill Exploration Company.

[3] Tarbuttite has been found in Algeria, Angola, Australia, Canada, China, Namibia, the United States, and Zambia.

It has been found in association with cerussite, descloizite, hemimorphite, hopeite, hydrozincite, "limonite", parahopeite, pyromorphite, scholzite, smithsonite, and vanadinite.