It is native to northwestern Africa in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, with two small outlying populations on Malta, and near Cartagena in southeast Spain in Europe.

The cones are 10–15 mm long, green ripening brown in about 8 months from pollination, and have four thick scales arranged in two opposite pairs.

[7][8] It is one of only a small number of conifers able to coppice (regrow by sprouting from stumps), an adaptation to survive wildfire and moderate levels of browsing by animals.

It has been used thus since antiquity (Ancient Greek: θύον,[11][12] Latin: citrus[13]), and was used to make valuable furniture in the time of the Roman Empire.

A related extinct species, Tetraclinis salicornioides, has leaf and cone fossils of Messinian age (ca.