Essential oil content and composition of nine cultivated accessions of Anthemis pseudocotula Boiss

Anthemis with 39 native species belongs to Asteraceae family. Essential oils of the flowers, leaves and stems with special components are used in pharmaceutical industries. In order to study essential oil content and composition of different accessions of Anthemis pseudocotula, the seeds were collected from provinces of Golestan, Yazd, Semnan, Tehran, Zanjan and Bushehr and were sown at Alborz experimental station. In addition to terminated flower bearing shoots at flowering stage, whole sample flower bearing shoots of A. pseudocotula were sampled and their essential oil were extracted byhydro-distillation method and analyzed and identified by GC and GC/MS. Results of essential oil analysis of different accessions showed that essential oil yields of Zanjan and Golestan 1 were 0.2% and 0.03 %, respectively. Thirty-two components were recognized in eight accessions that were different in number, type and percentage. Their main components were β-thujone (Golestan 2, Golestan 3, Tehran, Yazd, Bushehr and Golestan 1 were 62.9%, 36%, 33.1%, 26.1%, 20.4% and 13.9% respectively), Z-β- farnesene (Bushehr, code 29717, Yazd, Golestan 3, Zanjan, Tehran and Golestan 1 were 38.1%,21.9%,16%,15.7%,14.4%,13.3% and 12.2% % respectively), and caryophyllene oxide (Yazd, Golestan 1 and code 29717 were 20.4%, 20.1% and 17.7% respectively). Some components belonged to specific accession, so that myrcene, Z - β-ocimene, dihydro carveol, myrtenol and caryophyllene oxide in Zanjan, camphor in Golestan, (E,E) –α- farnesene in Bushehr and 1,8-cineole in Golestan and Zanjan accessions. Based on the results, in order to gain some components with high percentage, we need to select specific accessions.