Lacquer tree is an important economic tree of China, with significant potential values in various applications. The lacquer juices, lacquer seeds and lacquer materials can be processed so as to widely be applied to chemical industry, medicine industry, food industry, architecture industry and other fields,but the medicine industry, food industry and architecture fields remain to be explored. This paper summarizes the literature during the last 10 years regarding the resource distribution, the chemical composition, the extraction and the current situation of lacquer tree studies, with emphasis on the future applications of lacquer tree in medicine and biology fields.