10th -17th September - Corfu, Greece - The Olive Tree

A couple of days into the holiday we were sitting in the bar and I was taken by the Olive tree just outside.  I took this photograph as I liked the way the trunk twisted and contrasted with the sea in the background and grass.

There are many Olive Trees around the resort and we had already commented on the gnarled appearance and holes around the trunk and I started to think it would be nice to photograph tem and then convert them into black and white.

Which is what I have done.  Here is a portfolio of the various Olive tree trunks around the resort along with some information on the Olive.

The olive has deep historical, economic, and cultural significance in the Mediterranean. It was one of the first fruit trees to be domesticated, being first cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean between 6,000 and 4,000 BC. It gradually spread around the Mediterranean Basin via trade and human migration. Olive cultivation was vital to the growth and prosperity of several Mediterranean civilisations.

The olive is cultivated throughout the Mediterranean Basin, and in other regions with a suitable climate. Spain, Italy, and Greece lead the world in commercial olive production. There are many cultivars, some used primarily for oil, others for eating. Approximately 80% of all harvested olives are processed into oil, with the rest cured and fermented as table olives.

As one of the oldest cultivated fruit trees on Earth, the history of the olive is deeply intertwined with humans; its ecological success and expansion is largely the result of human activity rather than environmental conditions, with the tree's genetic and geographic trajectory directly reflecting the rise and fall of several civilisations. Owing to this relationship with humans, the olive has been disseminated well beyond its native range, spanning 28.6 million acres across 66 countries. Fossil evidence indicates that the olive tree had its origins 20–40 million years ago in the Oligocene, in what now corresponds to Italy and the eastern Mediterranean Basin.

  

Olive trees have been venerated for their resilience and longevity since antiquity; several specimens are reputed to be several thousand years old. However, compared to other woody plants, the exact lifespan is difficult to determine through common methods like dendrochronology (analysing tree rings) due to the olive tree's irregular growth patterns, which can include missing annual tree rings, hollowed-out interiors, and multiple trunks. For example, a 2013 study revealed wide disparities among different laboratories conducting tree-ring dating of the same specimens. 

Although age can be inferred from a tree's diameter, this method is imperfect due to a range of other factors that affect size and length, such as soil fertility and climatic conditions. Based on a combination of tree-ring and radiocarbon dating, olive trees have maximum ages between 300 and 500 years, with some research finding that most of the oldest trees had lived for up to 700 years.

There is a large tree in the main foyer of the resort and this is reputed to be at least 400 years old.

This is actually a hole in the trunk.

The fruit is eaten as table olives; the oil extracted from the fruit is used in food and formerly for lamp fuel; and the wood is used for decorative objects. The olive branch is a symbol of peace. The olive is a core ingredient in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, particularly in the form of olive oil, and a defining feature of local landscapes, commerce, and folk traditions.

The roots from the base of the trunk reaching out into the grass.

The blurred image is actually another olive trunk in the foreground.

Whether or not these images do the Olive justice is really down to whoever looks at them.  I just found it an interesting subject.