The core centre of culture, the Mediterranean region is also home of the olive tree. A symbol of peace, wealth and glory, in ancient times the olive tree leaves were put on the winners' heads, to crown them as the best war fighters or game players, as well as excellent poets, writers or dramatists. Therefore, it must be said that the olive tree has always played a crucial role in the history of civilization. Thanks to its peculiar weather conditions, characterized by hot and moist summers and mild but quite rainy winters, the geographic area surrounding the Mediterranean sea has always been particularly indicated for the growing of the olive tree. Over the past, most olive grooves were rather cropped in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean basin, which usually included such countries as Greece, Turkey, Syria and Palestine, whereas today the culture of olives is better known and more commonly spread all over the Western area of the Mediterranean basin, in such other countries as Spain and Italy, where, alone, the Apulia region, with more than 35.000.000 square kilometres of ground covered with olive grooves, accounts for 35% of the whole domestic production of olives and olive oils. In Apulia, olive trees are an important and considerable part of the landscape. SW to Bari, they are most of the "Cima di Mola" variety, whereas NW to Bari they mainly belong to the "Coratina" and "Cima di Bitonto" variety. In particular, concerning the "Cima di Bitonto" olive trees, they usually undergo a very important operation called pruning, which aims at allowing them good light and air penetration, thus leading, eventually, also at generally very huge harvests and quite easier reaping procedures. Once the pruning completed, the picturesque branches of the "Cima di Bitonto" trees really look like lots of mummified snakes
Today, however, the center of olive growing is the western part of the Mediterranean and countries like Spain and Italy hold the primacy of world olive oil production. Puglia, with its 350,000 hectares of cultivation, represents today, one of the most olive growing regions in the world . It alone contributes approximately 35% to the entire national production. The olive tree paints the Apulian landscape in a decisive way. The imposing and spectacular olive trees of the “Cima di Mola” variety are widespread in the area south of Bari. To the north of the Apulian capital there are mainly trees of the variety "Coratina" and "Cima di Bitonto" .
The latter undergo a very important cultivation operation, pruning. Pruning tends to obtain good fruiting, to give sufficient lighting and ventilation to the entire crown and, finally, to facilitate harvesting operations.
Once the pruning is over, the branches of the crowns of the "Bitonto peak", remind bodies of snakes suddenly stiffened during a movement .