Olive Tree

The olive, the oil-bearing fruit of the olive tree, is an evergreen native of the Eastern Mediterranean. The olive drupe, can be round, oval or elliptic with a thin skin which changes from green to black, and has a central hard stone. To be eaten, olives need to be treated to remove the fruit’s bitterness. The olive is the only fruit with a high amount of oil in its pulp that can be extracted by cold press. The small white, feathery flowers are borne generally on the previous year's wood, in racemes springing from the axils of the leaves.