Determination of Volatiles in Water Lily Flowers Using Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Volatile organic compounds in the stamens, petals, and pistils of 56 water lily cultivars were determined by headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The stamens released a majority of the volatiles. A total of 117 volatile organic compounds were determined. Alkanes and alkenes were the most abundant, followed by aldehydes and ketones. Cluster analysis was used to divide the cultivars into three subsets characterized by specific aromatic compounds and associated aromas. Discriminant analysis confirmed the results of the cluster analysis. Three tropical water lily cultivars Colorata, 34, and Ai Ji Bai and one hardy water lily cultivar Somptuosa had particularly high aromatic compound concentrations and are recommended to produce fragrant, colorful, and hardy specimens.

Keywords:

• Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
• GC–MS
• Solid-phase microextraction
• SPME
• Volatile compounds
• Water lily

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Dr. Yanjun Xu (Department of Applied Chemistry, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China) for assistance in GC–MS analysis.

Notes

Notes: Numbers in parentheses are the cultivar codes used in Figs. 1 and 3 and Supplementary Tables 1 and 2.

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