Olive tree (Olea europaea)
Original title: Oliveira (Olea europaea)
Describes the wild olive (Olea europaea), an evergreen shrub or small tree found on the coast of Madeira, on Porto Santo and on Ilhéu Chão, also known as zambujeiro. It notes that its fruit is not used, although cultivated olives seen on Porto Santo probably came from mainland cuttings.
An evergreen shrub or small tree with lanceolate-linear leaves (var. madeirensis) or oblong, obovate, oval or rounded leaves (var. buxifolia), found on the coast of Madeira, on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) and on Ilhéu Chão (‘flat islet’). It yields a yellowish wood with dark veins and small fruits that are not used because they have little flesh. It is also known as zambujeiro.
Some olive trees that we saw years ago on Porto Santo, whose fruit was used although less tasty than that of the mainland, probably came from cuttings imported from Portugal rather than from specimens native to the island (1921).
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Place
Places mentioned · 04
Abroad
- Ilhéu Chão
Santa Cruz · Desertas. One of the places where the wild olive grows.
The Ilhéu Chão is the smallest, flattest and northernmost of the three uninhabited Desertas islands, 93 m high and 19 miles from Funchal to its landing at the porto de Santa Maria. It is the only known home of the endemic grass Lolium lowei, and it once belonged to the captains of Funchal.
- Porto Santo
The wild olive occurs here, and cultivated olives with usable fruit were also seen here.
An island of the archipelago, settled alongside Madeira and forming one of the three captaincies. It has always constituted a single parish, dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Piedade, whose church was repeatedly sacked. The Elucidário records the Moorish pirate raid of 1617, its own Misericórdia and a rainwater channel built on this drought-prone island.
- Portugal
The probable source of the cuttings of the cultivated olives seen on Porto Santo.
Portugal, the mother country of Madeira. The Elucidário notes that artillery detachments were sent from the mainland to garrison Madeira before 1877, that Madeira was linked to Portugal by telegraph cable in 1874, and that woad and gifts of honey were formerly sent there from the island. Mainland oranges and olives are compared favourably with those of Madeira and Porto Santo.