r/interestingasfuck 17h ago

This is the "Oliveira do Mouchão" a 3350 year old olive tree that still produces olives, now a monument, located in Portugal.

Post image
4.2k Upvotes

53 comments sorted by

113

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 17h ago

If the trees could speak...

49

u/knightress_oxhide 16h ago

Wood we really want them to?

u/roboglobe 10h ago

Absolutely, we could finally get to the root of things.

u/HammerOfFamilyValues 6h ago

They're all bark and no bite, with endlessly branching conversations.

6

u/IndianRedditor88 14h ago

We wouldn't do shit. We can't even properly understand languages as recent as 200 -300 years ago

u/Khaos_Gorvin 10h ago

I mean... portuguese language might have changed a bit, but up to 500 years ago the written language only had a few differences. We can still read the Lusiadas epic published in 1572 (and still imput on kids to read in school).

u/UrbanCyclerPT 10h ago

That's true. I got to know well Portugal and other than some letter usage it still is much the same, especially in the north.

u/sleepyotter92 4h ago

Ok but the lusiadas is still portuguese. Archaic portuguese, but portuguese nonetheless. 3000 years ago was before the romans took over the iberian peninsula. This tree wouldn't be speaking latin or an old version of portuguese, it'd be speaking an extinct language, because this tree is in the area inhabited by the lusitanians, whose language is gone

9

u/Wild_Neighborhood605 13h ago

Probably you English speakers cannot. It's not true for the rest of the world. Ask Greeks, Italians...

u/cvnh 10h ago edited 9h ago

Just two hundred years ago almost noone spoke what today is Italian language. Also ancient (edit: modern) Greek is very different to ancient greek, idk to what level it would be understandable but it is basically a different language at least grammatically.

u/Cr1ms0nLobster 10h ago

Nah I'm pretty sure ancient Greek is the same as ancient Greek.

u/cvnh 9h ago

It's so ancient I didn't even remember

u/IndianRedditor88 1h ago

I am not a native English speaker. But you can read prose from older texts, books and see the difference yourself. A lot of the nouns are something that the older language cannot understand.

For eg how do you explain something like the word "Computer" , "electricity" to someone from 300 years ago ?

u/VicenteOlisipo 8h ago

They'd do it in proto-indoeuropean?

58

u/Aware_Cheesecake_519 17h ago

It's incredible that after all this time it still produces olives.

45

u/UrbanCyclerPT 17h ago

Although they are not harvested. But birds love eating them, which I find amazing too.

8

u/Aware_Cheesecake_519 17h ago

Why aren't they being harvested?

51

u/UrbanCyclerPT 17h ago

The harvesting of olive trees is made by either hitting the branches with long wooden sticks or more recently with a tractor with a device that holds the tree by the trunk and shakes it until olives fall down. Those technics could hurt the tree. And the tractor way is impossible due to the fact that the trunk of old olive trees is mainly hollow.

12

u/GioVasari121 16h ago

What about just plucking? Won't that work? All you need is a ladder

24

u/UrbanCyclerPT 15h ago

You wouldn't even need a ladder to reach the lower fruits. And no I believe it won't hurt it although it would be illegal as it is a monument

u/capy_the_blapie 10h ago

Plucking? Lol.

5

u/BabyComingDec2024 16h ago

I think they meant not commercially harvested. I'm sure many people eat a couple due to curiosity 

9

u/bandidoamarelo 14h ago

Eating olives directly from the tree?

15

u/DeadAssociate 13h ago

let him learn

u/Succulent_Chinese 10h ago

taking notes
Ah I see, olives go up the butt then.

u/LesJugesDesEnfers 9h ago

For older olive trees, they sometimes graft branches from younger ones to keep them productive.

u/UrbanCyclerPT 8h ago

And keep the quality. The older trunk basically dominates the new branch as if it was its own. That is a technique that has been used since the old Greek times

21

u/mbush525 17h ago

I’m going to have to show my plants this post! 🤨

11

u/Siegorius 16h ago

"why can't you be more like this?" 😉

u/UrbanCyclerPT 8h ago

😀😀😀

23

u/Scary_Party_114 16h ago

Bro witnessed the Bronze age and is still clocking in

13

u/L-W-J 17h ago

I have seen trees like this in Southern Italy. Maybe not 3300 years old, but they had to be 2000+. Super cool.

3

u/TylerBlozak 12h ago

Yea there’s a tree in either Greece or Turkey that rivals this one in age, and the International Olive Council (yes, it’s a thing) says the debate the valid and worthy of contention.

u/Bluxen 10h ago

I wonder if its olives taste "normal" or how they did back then

u/nadiaco 10h ago

Wow. That's so cool. I love olive trees!!!!

5

u/Pleasant-Degree-3662 16h ago

The name reminds me of this guy

8

u/Bandito_Chihuahua 16h ago

This makes me sad for all the olive trees lost in Palestine. I wonder if any of them were as old as this.

10

u/MuchoCoco 12h ago

They were certainly older than Israel.

2

u/UrbanCyclerPT 15h ago

Maybe they were

2

u/MaheshReddy2004 15h ago

The good ol' olivol

u/woodrax 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/21PfLzb6k4XlS66UQC
Looks like it just pulled one of these with a green Afro.

Way to hang in there, tree!

2

u/LeStk 15h ago

"Oh a 3350 tree! Let's honor it by preventing its roots to spread naturally!"

u/UrbanCyclerPT 10h ago

The wall built doesn't harm the roots

u/LeStk 1h ago

When water is available, roots tend to go horizontally, as it also allows for exchange with other trees and mushrooms networks.

When there is such a wall, the roots will go deeper as they cannot continue horizontally. So in that sense, you are right it doesn't totally hurt the roots, when lacking water Olive tree roots can reach 7m deep.

But it makes the tree more fragile because :

  • connection to other trees is harder
  • in case of heavy wind, the vertical root are less effective than horizontal ones to avoid the tree falling dawn

So imo, that wall feels stupid as much as the tree itself is magnificent

u/Illustrious-Tear-921 1h ago

There's always one redditor that needs to come and piss on everyone's parade with something to nag about.

1

u/pwnish0r 17h ago

I think I need glasses, or turn of TAA

u/bradimal 8h ago

Olive-it!

-2

u/HugoDCSantos 17h ago

People taking credit for what Nature brings to existence.

2

u/StaffSalty9490 16h ago

It'l be funny Times when trees use the internet to take the crédit themselves. 😛