Along the river, the vegetal landscape is characterized by different phytocoenoses depending on different ecological factors like the morphology of the river basin of the valley, the varying width of the riverbed, and the fluctuations in the seasonal water flow.
The mountain stretch of the territory, where Pizzo Leo (1,365m), Mt. Croce Mancina (1,341m), Pizzo Petrolo (1,337m), Pizzo Palo (1,324m), and Mt. Castellazzo (1,311m) rise, consists of a massif belonging to the west Peloritani mountains, whose slope morphology has been shaped by the several watercourses with a mainly torrential regime. This stretch of Peloritani mountains, famous for its rich avifauna (Golden Eagle and Bonelli’s Eagle), arouses a considerable naturalistic interest also for the presence of forest coenoses, among which the beech tree wood, the sole example in the whole Peloritani group.
The phytosociological research on Bosco di Malabotta has highlighted the naturalistic value of the beech tree wood and its importance in the history of the mountain vegetation of the Island. The safeguard of this forest stretch is of great importance since it is known that once the beech tree gets destroyed, it will be very difficult to reconstruct the ideal ecological conditions.
In the stretch between the springs of Randazzo, the banks are dominated for long stretches by shrubby and arboreal willow groves; from Randazzo to Castiglione, where the river becomes a torrent with large pebbled shores, a vegetation growing on gravelly shores dominates (helichrysum formations of Euphorbion rigidae), replaced by thick small oleander bushes on the alluvial terraces that are lifted with respect to the riverbed (Spartio-Nerium oleander); between Castiglione and Gaggi, the river runs in a narrow valley characterized by riparian vegetation, also consisting of plane trees; from Gaggi to the mouth, the valley opens and along the river it is possible to find formations of Platano-Salicetum gussonei.