The Olive Tree. 131 



and the general appearance of the tree is not unlike that of a com- 

 mon willow which has been lopped, and which has acquired a new 

 summit of three or four years, growth. Indeed the ohve possess- 

 es neither the majesty of forest trees, nor the gracefulness of 

 shrubbery. It clothes the hills, without adorning them, and, con 

 sidered as an accident of the landscape, it does not charge the 

 picture sufficiently to contribute greatly to its beauty. The rich 

 culture for which the southern provinces of France are celebrat- 

 ed, is less conducive to rural beauty than some of the humbler 

 species of husbandry. The richest country is not always the 

 most lovely; a country of mines, for example, is usually ungra- 

 cious to the eye; and the olive is called by an Itahan writer, a 

 mine upon the surface of the earth. 



The main limbs of the olive are numerously divided; the branch- 

 es are opposite, and the pairs are alternately placed upon conju- 

 gate axes of the hmb. The fohage is evergreen, but a part of it 

 turns yellow and falls in the summer, and in three years it is com- 

 pletely renewed. In the spring or early autumn, the seasons 

 when vegetation is in its greatest activity, the young leaves put 

 forth immediately above the cicatrix of the former leaf stalks, 

 and are distinguished by their suppleness, and by the freshness of 

 their tint. The color of their leaves varies in the diiferent varie- 

 ties of the olive, but they are generally smooth, and of a light 

 green above, whitish and somewhat downy, with a prominent rib 

 beneath. On most of the cultivated varieties they are from fifteen 

 lines to two inches long, and from six to twelve lines broad, 

 narrow, with both ends acute, even and whole at the edge, placed 

 immediately on the main stem without a foot stalk, opposite and 

 alternate in the manner of the branches. 



The olive is slow in blooming, as well as in every function of 

 vegetable life. The buds begin to appear about the middle of 

 April, and the bloom is not full before the end of May, or the be- 

 ginning of June. The flowers are small, white, shghtly odorife- 

 rous, and disposed in axillary racemes or clusters. A peduncle 

 about as long as the leaf, issues from its base, upon wdiich the 

 flowers are supported by secondary pedicles, like those of the 

 common currant. Sometimes the clusters are almost as numer- 

 ous as the leaves, and garnish the tree with wanton luxuriance; 

 at others they are thinly scattered over the branches, or seen on- 

 ly at the extremity. It is essential to remark, that they are 

 borne by the shoots of the preceding year. Each flower is com- 

 plete in itself, consisting of a calyx, a monopetalous corolla divi- 

 ded into four lobes, and in the organs of reproduction, namely, 

 two stamens and one pistil. 



