The “oliva ascolana” is a luxuriant tree with thick foliage and an upright habit of growth (it can reach 7-8 meters). The wood of  its branches is light-coloured and soft, the branches holding the fruit tend to have a weeping habit of growth and  short-medium internodes.

Its trunk, which is rather light-coloured and smooth, is covered with a wide-scaled  bark. Its leaves - whose upper lamina  is dark green and whose  lower lamina is silvery grey - are rather big (6x1.5 cm) and delicate.

It begins its  vegetative functions in March and its inflorescence, composed of about 20 sparse flowers, has the shape of a long and narrow bunch. This variety blossoms the beginning of June, i.e. earlier then the others oil and table varieties cultivated in the same area.

Blossoming

It has beeen observed that the later it  blossoms the lesser the fruit it produces, as the following old rhyme confirms:
se mignola di aprile vacci col barile,          se mignola di maggio vacci con il saggio,          se mignola di giugno vacci con il pugno. (When olives blossom in April, you’ll need a barrel, when olives blossom in May, you’ll need a tray, when olives blossom in June, you’ll need a  spoon. - translator’s note)
Bud differentiation usually takes place 40 days before blossoming. This cultivar needs cross-pollination, since it is self-incompatible (the rate of fruits that fails to ripen reaches 60%). When impollination is helped with forced air circulation in the olive plantation during blossoming, even though there is a greater production of olives, they are smaller.

Standard drupes have a thin epicar and an elongated shape with rounded base and apex; when they become straw-yellowish green, they are ripe enough to be commercialised, while when they reach their physiological ripeness, they become reddish-violet. Their medium calibre is 20-22 mm and their lenght 26-30 mm. Each kilo contains about 120-140 drupes, whose medium weight is about 6-8 gr. and whose volume is 7.5-8.5 cc. The drupe resistance to a durometer (2.5 diameter with 5 mm penetration) is 510-520 and the ratio pulp-stone is 5.85-6.10.

Its mesocarp is extremely soft, and this is the reason for the name given to this variety.

The pulp, which is juicy and tasty, constitutes about 88-92% of the whole drupe, it is particularly tender and it has a distinctive unique flavour. When ripe, the drupe can be easily detached from the branches.

Its endocarp – which is longitudinally grooved in its exterior surface (two grooves are deeper than the others) - is 18-20 mm long and 8-10 mm wide. The two ends of  the elongated stone are pointed.

Agronomists and reserchers who have been studying the selection of the variety of the “Oliva Tenera Ascolana” have found the following biotypes: Vallefiorana 50 (S. Armellini in the area of Piceno) and 42 A, 42B and 42 C (Hartmann and Papaioannou in the USA).