🌳 Olive trees, groves and famous trees

Olive trees, groves and famous trees is the section about the Olive tree itself (Olea europaea), about olive groves and about individual trees that have become landmarks. The cultivated olive descends from the wild oleaster and grows mostly between 30° and 45° latitude in both hemispheres, in places with hot, dry summers.

According to the IOC, olive groves cover more than 11 million hectares, and 98% of the world's olives are harvested in the Mediterranean (2015 estimate). An Olive grove can look very different: a traditional one has 50–100 trees per hectare, sometimes up to 250, an intensive one 200–550, and a super-high-density one 1,000–2,000. A commercial grove is usually kept for about 50 years.

Individual olive trees live for centuries and even millennia, and many old Mediterranean trees are grafted onto wild olive rootstocks. The wild olive itself grew in the Levant some 780,000 years ago: its pollen, stones and wood were found at the site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov.

The most famous of these trees is the Olive tree of Vouves on Crete, in the municipality of Platanias (Chania). It is considered the oldest fruit-bearing olive tree in the world and is estimated to be several thousand years old. Genetic analysis showed that its scion is related to the cultivar Mastoidis, while the rootstock is close to oleasters. In 2004 the winners of the Athens Olympic Games were crowned with wreaths cut from this tree.

The section also covers other famous trees: Oliveira do Mouchão, the Witch's Olive Tree, the Al-Badawi olive tree and the Sisters Olive Trees of Noah.