Tree in the context of "Grove (nature)"

The olive (botanical name Olea europaea, "European olive") is a species of subtropical evergreen tree in the family Oleaceae. Originating in Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean Basin, with wild subspecies in Africa and western Asia; modern cultivars are traced primarily to the Near East, Aegean Sea, and Strait of Gibraltar. The olive is the type species for its genus, Olea, and lends its name to the Oleaceae plant family, which includes lilac, jasmine, forsythia, and ash. The olive fruit is classed botanically as a drupe, similar in structure and function to the cherry or peach. The term oil—now used to describe any viscous water-insoluble liquid—was originally synonymous with olive oil, the liquid fat derived from olives.

The olive has deep historical, economic, and cultural significance in the Mediterranean. It is among the oldest fruit trees domesticated by humans, being first cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean between 6,000 and 4,000 BC, most likely in the Levant. The olive gradually disseminated throughout the Mediterranean via trade and human migration starting in the 16th century BC; it took root in Crete around 3500 BC and reached Iberia by about 1050 BC. Olive cultivation was vital to the growth and prosperity of various Mediterranean civilizations, from the Minoans and Myceneans of the Bronze Age to the Greeks and Romans of classical antiquity.

Oleaceae (/ˌoʊliˈeɪsi.iː, -ˌaɪ/), also known as the olive family or sometimes the lilac family, is a taxonomic family of flowering shrubs, trees, and a few lianas in the order Lamiales. It presently comprises 28 genera, one of which is recently extinct. The extant genera include Cartrema, which was resurrected in 2012. The number of species in the Oleaceae is variously estimated in a wide range around 700. The flowers are often numerous and highly odoriferous. The family has a subcosmopolitan distribution, ranging from the subarctic to the southernmost parts of Africa, Australia, and South America. Notable members include olive, ash, jasmine, and several popular ornamental plants including privet, forsythia, fringetrees, and lilac.

Olea (/ˈoʊliə/ OH-lee-ə) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. It includes 12 species native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Middle East, southern Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and Australasia. They are evergreen trees and shrubs, with small, opposite, entire leaves. The fruit is a drupe. Leaves of Olea contain trichosclereids.

For humans, the most important and familiar species is by far the olive (Olea europaea), native to the Mediterranean region, Africa, southwest Asia, and the Himalayas, which is the type species of the genus. The native olive (O. paniculata) is a larger tree, attaining a height of 15–18 m in the forests of Queensland, and yielding a hard and tough timber. The yet harder wood of the black ironwood O. capensis, an inhabitant of Natal, is important in South Africa.

Fraxinus (/ˈfræksɪnəs/), commonly called ash, is a genus of plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae, and comprises 45–65 species of usually medium-to-large trees, most of which are deciduous (dropping their leaves in autumn), although some subtropical species are evergreen. The genus is widespread throughout much of Europe, Asia, and North America.

The leaves are usually opposite, and mostly pinnately compound (divided into leaflets in a feather-like arrangement). The seeds, known as "keys", are botanically fruits of the type called samara. Some species are dioecious, having male and female flowers on separate plants.

A fruit tree is a tree which bears fruit that is consumed or used by animals and humans. All trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovaries of flowers containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term "fruit tree" is limited to those that provide fruit for human food. Types of fruits are described and defined elsewhere (see Fruit), but would include "fruit" in a culinary sense, as well as some nut-bearing trees, such as walnuts.

The scientific study and the cultivation of fruits is called pomology, which divides fruits into groups based on plant morphology and anatomy. Some of those groups are pome fruits, which include apples and pears, and stone fruits, which include peaches/nectarines, almonds, apricots, plums and cherries.

Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. Being a natural material, it is characterized as an organic material – a natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin and hemicelluloses that resists compression.

Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere, such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree, it performs a mechanical-support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients among the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, woodchips, or fibers.

A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor (anoxic) processes taking place, especially in the soils. Wetlands form a transitional zone between waterbodies and dry lands, and are different from other terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems due to their vegetation's roots having adapted to oxygen-poor waterlogged soils. They are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as habitats to a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals, with often improved water quality due to plant removal of excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphorus.

Wetlands exist on every continent, except Antarctica. The water in wetlands is either freshwater, brackish or saltwater. The main types of wetland are defined based on the dominant plants and the source of the water. For example, marshes are wetlands dominated by emergent herbaceous vegetation such as reeds, cattails and sedges. Swamps are dominated by woody vegetation such as trees and shrubs (although reed swamps in Europe are dominated by reeds, not trees). Mangrove forest are wetlands with mangroves and halophytic woody plants that have evolved to tolerate salty water.

Forest cover is the amount of trees that covers a particular area of land. It may be measured as relative (in percent) or absolute (in square kilometres/square miles). Nearly a third of the world's land surface is covered with forest, with closed-canopy forest accounting for 4 - 5 billion hectares of land. Forests provide many ecosystem services that humans and animals cannot survive without, but anthropogenic actions and climate change are threatening global forest cover in potentially irreversible ways.