Chemical Composition of the Essential Oil from Marrubium persicum C. A. Mey. (Lamiaceae)

The essential oil of Maruubium persicum C. A. Mey (Lamiaceae) was obtained by hydrodistillation from aerial parts of the plant during flowering stage. The chemical analyses of the essential oil by GC/MS and GC/FID, allowed us to identify thirty three compounds, representing 94.4% of the total oil. The essential oil of M. persicum was typically a complex mixture of mainly oxygenated non-terpenoids (51.5%), sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (27.9%), oxygenated sesquiterpenes (4.8%), monoterpene hydrocarbons (9%), and oxygenated monoterpenes (1.3%). The major components of the essential oil were m-tolualdehyde (19.2%) followed by acetophenone (14.6%), germacrene D (10.5%), β-caryophyllene (7.4%), β-farnesene (6.2%), and α-pinene (4.6%). In spite of the fact that Marrubium sp. contain quite lower amounts of aliphatic and non-terpenoid fractions, M. persicum revealed rather higher proportions of non-terpenoid compounds, namely acetophenone with different isomers of tolualdehyde which are considered to be reported for the first time in the genus Marrubium