Olives.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3968, 16 September 1881, Page 2

Olives.

From the fact that olive cuttings sent by Sir G. Grey are being distributed on the Thames, some information about the shrub may be interesting. The following appears in a standard work :■ —" The Common Olive (0. Europcea), a native of Syria and other Asiatic countries, and perhaps also of the south of Europe, although probably it is there rather naturalised than indigenous, is, in its wild state, a thorny shrub or small tree, but through cultivation becomes a tree of twenty—forty feet high, destitute of spines. It attains a prodigious age. The cultivated varieties are very numerous, differing in the breadth of the leaves, and in other characters. The leaves resemble those ot a willow, are lanceolate, entire, of a dull dark-green color above, scaly and whitish gray beneath; the flowers small and white, in short dense racemes ; the fruit greenish, whitish, violet, or even black, never larger than a pigeon's egg, generally oval, sometimes globular, or obovate, or acuminate. The fruit is produced in vast profusion, so that au old olive tree becomes very valuable to its owner. It is chiefly irom the pericarp that olive oil is obtained, not from the seed, contrary to the general rule of the vegetable kingdom. Olive oil is much used as an article of food in the countries in which it is produced, and to a smaller extent in other countries, to which it is exported also for medicinal and other uses. Olives, gathered before they are quite ripe, are pickled in various ways, being usually first steeped in lime water, by which they are rendered softer and milder in taste. They are well known as a restorative of the palate, and are also said to promote digestion. Disagreeable as they generally are at: first, they are soon greatly relished, and in the south of Europe are even a considerable article of food. Dried olives aro there also used, as well as pickled olives. The wood of the olive tree takes a beautiful polish, and has black cloudy spots and veins on a greenish-yellow ground; it is principally used for the finest purposes by cabinet makers and turners. The wood of the root is marked in a peculiarly beautiful manner, and is used for making snuff boxes aud small ornamental articles. The bark of the tree is bitter and astringent; and both it and the leaves hare febrifuge properties.. A gum resin exudes from old stems, which much resembles storax, has an odour like vanilla, and is used in all parts of Italy for^erfumery."