Stephen Middleton from the excellent Friends of Alexandra Park introduces us to his selection for this month’s Tree of the Month…

The Mediterranean has a place in Alexandra Park in the shape of September’s Tree of the Month. The European Olive (Olea europaea) is an evergreen tree originally from west Asia, north Africa and southern Europe. The only specimen in the park is right by the appropriately Italian-run Grove Cafe at What3words rescue.bets.rice. This particular tree so far only produces the odd olive, but check it out and see if you can find one.

Olives are in the same family as our native ash. They have thin green leaves with a whitish underside arranged in pairs along the branches. The flowers appear in spring and the olives themselves in autumn.

The bark becomes ridged when quite young (as in this tree) then as it gets older the tree takes on a really gnarly form which becomes gradually more extreme as the tree ages.

Travel abroad and you can find some spectacular old examples of the tree. Olive trees can on rare occasions grow up to 15 metres in height and can live for thousands of years.

Wild olives do not produce commercial quantities of olives so cultivated trees are used which are then typically propagated by cuttings.

The two main uses for the tree both involve the olive fruit. About a fifth of them are used for eating with the remainder processed to make olive oil. To make the olives edible they have to be cured by soaking in various solutions to remove their bitter flavoured chemical, oleuropein.

Green olives are the less ripe fruit with the black olives being left on the tree for longer. Both types are used for making olive oil.

Olive oil has also in the past been used as a fuel for lighting and even for keeping the Olympic flame alight.

The wood from the tree is hard and well regarded by woodturners as it has an attractive patterning in the wood.

The olive tree is linked with the myth of the formation of Athens with the city being named after the goddess Athena to thank her for planting an olive tree giving the city a source of food, light and fuel.

If you want to try some olives, pop down to the Ally Pally Farmers’ Market where there is normally a popular stall selling many varieties.