The olive, known by the botanical name Olea europaea, meaning "European olive," is a species of small tree in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. The species is cultivated in all the countries of the Mediterranean, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, and South Africa. Olea europaea is the type species for the genus Olea. The olive's fruit, also called an "olive," is of major agricultural importance in the Mediterranean region as the source of olive oil; it is one of the core ingredients in Mediterranean cuisine. The olive tree, Olea europaea, is an evergreen tree or shrub native to Mediterranean Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is short and squat and rarely exceeds height 8–15 m (26–49 ft). The silvery green leaves are oblong, measuring 4–10 cm long and 1–3 cm wide. The trunk is typically gnarled and twisted. The small, white, feathery flowers, with ten-cleft calyx and corolla, two stamens, and bifid stigma, are borne generally on the previous year's wood, in racemes springing from the axils of the leaves. The fruit is a small drupe 1–2.5 cm long when ripe, thinner-fleshed and smaller in wild plants than in orchard cultivars. Olives are harvested in the green to purple stage. Canned black olives have often been artificially blackened and may contain ferrous gluconate to improve their appearance. 

Fruits II

In botany, a fruit is a seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering.

Fruits are how flowering plants disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits, in particular, have long propagated using the movements of humans and animals in a symbiotic relationship that is the means for seed dispersal for the one group and nutrition for the other; in fact, humans and many animals have become dependent on fruits as a source of food.