Olive Wood (Olea europaea). The olive tree is an evergreen tree or shrub native to Mediterranean Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is short and squat and rarely exceeds 8–15 m (25–50 ft) in height. The wood from olive trees is usually highly figured with dense grain due to how it grows, making it great for kitchen tools and woodworking projects. Because the tree is mainly used to produce olives, wood is available when trees die or require trimming.
Olive trees are one of the longest lived organisms of Earth. With unverified estimates going up 6,000 years old and still producing olives. Folk legend also ascribes The Sisters (olive trees in Lebanon) as the source of the olive branch returned to Noah’s Ark at the waning of the Biblical Flood. Check out a list of the worlds oldest trees (both claimed and verified ages) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees.
The Olive tree thrives best in a warm, dry atmosphere, where the soil is rich and well drained. Long-continued droughts so detrimental to most plants will affect the Olive but slightly. The tree requires judicious pruning immediately after the fruit is gathered, when the sap is comparatively at rest. The small, thick leaves are lanceolate, opposite, and usually entire; they are dull green above and silvery beneath. The small white flowers, which come in panicles, are usually imperfect. The fruit is a small, ellipsoid drupe, which is bluish-black when ripe. Its oil is an important product. The Olive may be propagated from seeds, cuttings, layers, suckers and pieces of the old stumps. The seeds require some time to germinate, and the growth of the young plant is slow.
“There is no tree nor fruit which offers more in interest than the olive tree and its fruit. To obtain anything approaching an idea of its many-sidedness, it is necessary to become acquainted with the life and legends of ancient peoples, in which it entered as sustenance and as symbol; to know something of art, as the olive has furnished the motif for much decoration, both symbolic and purely esthetic; to know something of botany and horticulture, to appreciate its parts and to understand their structure and development; something of chemistry and physics, to understand its various constituents and their intelligent treatment; something of the culinary art, to understand its value and its varied uses as a food and condiment; of medicine, to appreciate the many virtues ascribed to it as a healing agent; and of cosmetics, to believe all that is claimed for it as a cleanser and beautifier. Each phase offers many fascinating possibilities, revealed through the most ancient as well as the most recent literature, for with time the olive has gained both in interest and value.
Excerpt from The Olive – K. G. Bitting (Read It Here)