3lfi VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



more soft and delicate. The flowers are as delicate 

 as the leaves : thev come i» little spikes from buds 

 between the leaf-stalks and the spikes. At first they 

 are of a pale yellow ; but when thev expand their 

 four petals, the insides of them are white, and only 

 the centre of the flower yellow. The matured wood 

 of the olive is hard and compact, though rather 

 brittle, and has the pith nearly obliterated, as is the 

 case with box. Its colour is reddish, and it takes a 

 fine gloss ; on which account the ancients carved it 

 into statues of the gods ; the moderns make it into 

 snuff-boxes and other trinkets. 



The wild olive is found indigenous in Syria, Greece, 

 and Africa, on the lower slopes of the Atlas. The 

 cultivated one grows spontaneously in many parts of 

 Syria ; and is easily reared in all parts of the shores 

 of the Levant that are not apt to be visited by frosty 

 winds. Where olives abound they give mucli beauty 

 to the landscape. " The beautiful plain of Athens, 

 as seen toward the north-west from Mount Hymettus, 

 appears entirely covered with olive-trees*." Tuscany, 

 the south of France, and the plains of Spain, are the 

 places of Europe in which the olive was first culti- 

 vated. The Tuscans were the first who exported 

 olive-oil largely, and thus it has obtained the name 

 of Florence-oil ; but the purest is said to be obtained 

 from about Aix, in France. 



The particular departments of France in which the 

 olive is most successfully cultivated are those of the 

 Mouths of the Rhone, of the Var, of the Gard, and 

 some others ; but it does not ripen its fruit to the 

 north-west of a line drawn from the Pyrenees, near 

 Narbonne, to the foot of the little St. Bernard in the 

 Alps ; or in that part of France which may he con- 

 sidered as forming a portion of the basin of the 



* Olivier. 



