This article in live science very briefly describes the genetic survey of olive oil mitochondrial DNA and claims the first domestication occurred on the border of today's Syria and Turkey, 8000 years ago, and spread to the next hotspots of origin: Gibraltar, near East and Cyprus, and the Aegean.
http://www.livescience.com/26887-olive-tree-origins.html The following article is full of hints at interesting detail about the sacred uses of the olive, but incorrectly claims that the wild olive originates in Turkey, https://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/history-olive It is in fact indigenous to the whole of Africa, the middle east, China, even Reunion Island, (wikipedia The author should have said that the domesticated varieties originate in Turkey. An 'African' olive tree or wild olive Olea africana (a subspecies of Olea europea, or Olea sylvestris) in your garden will insure a good crop of your olive cultivar by allowing cross pollination. It does not need more than one tree to bear, being self fertilizing, but bears more fully... see more information on the sexual reproduction of olives below. They belong to the same family as Jasmine and Lilac, perhaps why I smelt such a wonderful smell coming out of the olive twig bouquet, a very 'un olivy' bouquet according to my preconceived notions this article states that the olive flower is perfumed, but that is all, strange given the exquisiteness of its perfume. flowers are either bisexual or male. https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/olive.html The following is I think based on a misunderstanding of male and bisexual flowers in olives like that in the description above. Recalling distant biology classes, the way plant sexuality is described... I'd moot that fruits are formed from female parts of the flower, There isn't such a thing as a 'male' fruit, anymore than there is a 'male' womb..... but in the Mediterranean where male pregnancy and parthenogenesis is modelled in the divine... the lowly olive may go along for the metaphorical ride http://www.italiannotebook.com/food-wine/secret-life-olive-trees/
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Authordraftswoman, recent student of Linguistics, Jill of all trades, planner of green new world.. Archives
October 2017
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