Essential Oil Composition of Phlomis cancellata Bunge, The

Journal of Essential Oil Research: JEOR, Nov/Dec 2006 by Morteza-Semnani, Katayoun, Moshiri, Kamran, Akbarzadeh, Mohammad

Abstract

The essential oil of Phlomis cancellata Bunge (Labiatae) collected from the suburb of Nour, northern Iran, in July 2004, was isolated by hydrodistillation and analyzed by means of GC and GC/MS for the first time. Fifty-three components were identified in this oil. The major constituents of the essential oil were germacrene D (25.6%) and α-pinene (6.4%).

Key Word Index

Phlomis cancellata, Labiatae, essential oil composition, germacrene D, α-pinene.

Plant Name

Phlomis cancellata Bunge (1,2).

Source

The flowering aerial parts of Ph. cancellata were collected in July 2004 from the suburb of Nour, Mazandaran province, northern Iran and identified by Department of Botany, Research Center of Natural Resources of Mazandaran. A voucher specimen (Herbarium No. 335) was deposited in the Herbarium of the Department of Botany, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences.

Plant Part

The air-dried flowering aerial parts of Ph. cancellata were subjected to hydrodistillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus for 4 h to yield 0.91% of yellowish oil. After preparation the oil was subjected to GC and GC/MS analysis.

Previous Work

The genus Phlomis compromises about 70 species (3); there are approximately 17 native Phlomis ssp., which are found wild in many regions of Iran (2). Phlomis cancellata Bunge belonging to the family Labiatae, is an aromatic plant that grows wild in Golestan, Khorasan and Mazandaran provinces of Iran (1). A literature survey has shown that there is no report on the volatile constituents of Ph. cancellata. The medicinal properties attributed to the essential oils of the genus Phlomis, prompted us to investigate the chemical constituents of the oil of Ph. cancellata for the first time.

Present Work

GC: Gas chromatographic analysis was carried out on a Perkin-Elmer 8500 gas chromatograph with FID detector and a DB-5 capillary column (30 m x 0.25 mm, film thickness 0.25 µm). The operating conditions were as follows: carrier gas He with a flow rate of 2 mL/min, the oven temperature was programmed as follows: 60°C (4 min), and then 60°-220°C at 4°C/min, injector and detector temperatures were set at 240°C.

GC/MS: Hewlett Packard 6890 series, using a DB-5 capillary column (30 m x 0.25 mm, film thickness 0.25 µm) which was programmed as follows: 60°C (5 min) and then 60°-220°C at 4°C/min. The carrier gas was He at a flow rate of 2 mL/min.

The percentage composition of oil was computed in each case from GC peak areas. The components of the oil were identified by their retention indices relative to C^sub 9^-C^sub 28^ n-alkanes, and by comparison of their mass spectra with those of authentic samples or with data already available in the literature (4-6).

As shown in Table I, 53 components were identified in this oil, which presented about 98.4% of the total composition of the oil. The major constituents of the essential oil were germacrene D (25.6%) and α-pinene (6.4%).

In 2000, Couladis et al. studied the oil obtained from the aerial parts of Ph. lanata growing in Greece, and found α-pinene (25.4%), limonene (15.7%) and β-caryophyllene (8.8%) as the major constituents (7). In a recent study, the oil compositions of the leaves and flowers of Ph. herba-venti L. collected from the suburb of Sari, Mazandaran province, northern Iran, was reported; the major constituents of the leaf oil were germacrene D (33.9%), hexadecanoic acid (12.9%) and α-pinene (9.4%) and the main components of the flower oil were hexadecanoic acid (33.1%), 6, 10, 14-trimethylpentadecan-2-one ( 16.2%), 3-methyltetradecane (6.7%) and germacrene D (6.7%) (8). There is no report on the volatile constituents of Ph. cancellata; therefore, we were unable to investigate variations of oil components due to differences in climate and geographic areas.

References

1. K.H. Rechinger, Flora Iranica. No. 150, pp 292-316, Akademische DruckU. Verlagsanstalt, Graz-Austria (1982).

2. V.A. Mozaffarian, Dictionary of Iranian plant names. pp 406-407, Farhang Mo'aser Publishers, Tehran (1996).

3. A. Zargari, Medicinal plants, vol 4, p 4, Tehran University Publications, Iran (1993).

4. P.P. Adams, Identification of essential oil components by gas chromatography/quadrupole mass spectroscopy. pp 44-442, Allured Publishing Corp., Carol Stream, IL (2001).

5. N.W. Davies, Gas chromatographic retention indices of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes on methyl silicone and Carbowax 20M phases. J. Chromatogr., 503, 1-24 (1990).

6. R. Engel, M. Gutmann, C. Hartisch, H. Kolodziej and A. Nahrstedt, Study on the composition of the volatile fraction of Hamamelis virginiana. Planta Med., 64, 251-258 (1998).

7. M. Couladis, A. Tanimanidis, O. Tzakou, I.B. Chinou and C. Harvala, Essential oil of Phlomis lanata growing in Greece: Chemical composition and antimicrobial activity. Planta Med., 66, 670-672 (2000).

8. K. Morteza-Semnani, M. Azadbakht and A.Goodarzi, The Essential oils composition of Phlomis herba-venti L. leaves and flowers of Iranian origin. Flav. Fragr. J., 19, 29-31 (2004).

Katayoun Morteza-Semnani* and Kamran Moshiri