The Olive (Olea europaea)

Some of the oldest, gnarliest olives in New Zealand can be found in Cornwall Park, Auckland, but the one shown here is only 12 years old and growing on a hilltop garden near Maungakawa Road. The olive can live 2-3000 years and still produce fruit. The old gnarled trunk can be chopped down and the tree will sprout again from the stump. The undersides of the leaves are silvery due to microscopic scales that reduce evaporation in heat and high wind. Under magnification these scales resemble tiny, frilly, overlapping parasols, about 1/6 mm across.

The olive’s natural range in Europe and North Africa more or less defines the Mediterranean world. These days Spain and Italy are the biggest producers of olives, but in the Middle East it has been used since Neolithic times for food, medicines and oil, for both cooking and lighting. In many languages the words for oil (Italian olio, French huile) derive from the Greek term for olive. Olives for eating are picked both half-ripe and ripe, while olives for oil are always picked ripe. The olive was first taken to Lima in the Americas by the Spaniard, Antonio de Rivera, in 1560.

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam the olive is associated with light, sustenance and religious purifications such as anointings and sacrificial offerings. In the Old Testament story of the flood, it was an olive branch that the dove brought back to Noah as a sign that both the waters and God’s wrath had abated. So the olive branch has also come to symbolise peace. [ Around the World in 80 Trees and Hugh Johnson’s International Book of Trees]