Essential oil composition of the aerial parts of fresh and air-dried Salvia palaestina Benth. (Lamiaceae) growing wild in Jordan

Abstract

The composition of the essential oil of fresh and air-dried Salvia palaestina Benth. (Lamiaceae) growing wild in Jordan has been studied using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis. The essential oils of fresh and air-dried S. palaestina were mainly composed of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (52.66% and 65.98%, respectively). The major component detected in the oils of fresh and dry S. palaestina was germacrene D (21.18% and 26.02%, respectively). Air drying resulted in a general increase of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons and a great decrease in the percentage of monoterpene hydrocarbons.

Keywords:

• Salvia palaestina
• essential oil
• sesquiterpene hydrocarbons
• germacrene D, GC/MS

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the publishers of Flavour and Fragrance Journal (Vol. 20, p. 526, Table 1) John Wiley & Sons, Journal of Essential Oil Research (Vol. 17, p. 420, Table 1) Allured Publishing Corporation, and Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences (Vol. 9, p. 2721, Table 1) Asian Network for Scientific Information for their permission to use some numerical values from the aforementioned tables in the present publication.