Morphological Traits and Essential Oils Components of Satureja Sahendica from Bostanabad Natural Habitats

Satureja sahendica, a perennial plant and endemic in Iran is belonge to Lamiaceae family is one of the most important medicinal plants. In this study due to importance of Satureja sahendica in traditional medicine and endemism of this plant in Iran, morphological traits of plant, essential oils content and components of this medicinal plant was evaluated and identified. For this purpose, the morphological traits measured in situ and then aerial parts including leaves and flowers were collected from five natural habitats of Satureja in Bostan-Abad from east Azebaijan province and then dried materials were used for essential oils extraction. Data in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) were analyzed. Chemical composition of essential oils identified by using Gas Chromatograph (GC) and Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC- MS) instruments. Based on the results the average essential oils content of plants aerial parts with three replications according to the dried weights of herbal substance varied from 0.46 to 1.44 Percent of dry weight in Atbatan and Abriz habitat respectively. The results showed that there was variation in some of the morphological traits of the studied habitats. Therefore, it is possible to identify the populations with the desired characteristics in terms of breeding programs of this plant using morphological traits to some extent. Overall, 34 compounds were identified from different habitats essential oil samples. According to the major constituents of the essential oils can be pointed to four chemotypes: 1. Pulegone–Piperitone, 2. Pulegone-1, 8-Cineole, 3. Thymol-Pulegone-Borneol and 4. Pulegone-γ-terpinene chemotypes from Abriz, Atbatan, Janbehan and Chinibulaghi habitats, respectively.  The highest correlation (0.99) was found between leaf length / width ratio and essential oil percentage.