Olive wood (Olea europaea) comes from the Mediterranean region, Italy, Greece and Middle East. The tree grows very slowly, can reach thousand years of age and its wood is said to be one of the most beautiful woods of the world. The colour and structure varies so much that its hard to describe it: the sapwood is creamy bright golden-yellow, the heartwood shows unique figures like fiddle back, burl and wavy structures in brown to rich greenish brown, reddish salmon pink colour, streaked with dark brown to nearly black lines and shows very nice contrast. Due to its slow growth the wood is hard and heavy, its limited availability makes it even more precious. Beautiful wide boards are only available when very old trees are cut down because they don't bear olives any more, this happens after a few hundred years. Due to the totally irregular growth of olive stems larger dimensions of wood without holes, bark inclusions or cracks are very hard to obtain.
Very large and decorative heavy plank with great grain, unfortunately with lots of cracks throughout.
