Variation of Chemical Composition of Essential Oils in Wild Populations of Ferulago cassia Boiss. From Turkey

The present study was carried out to investigate the essential oil yield and chemical composition of essential oils from the fruits of Ferulago cassia Boiss. The fruits of F. cassia, a native plant of Turkish flora, were collected at the seed maturing stage from different localities and the essential oils were extracted by hydrodistillation. Chemical components of the oils were identified by GC and GC-MS. The oil yields on a dry weight basis ranged between 5.0 % to 7.8 %. The number of essential oil components was between 44 to 64 for different locations and a total of 78 compounds were identified. Major qualitative and quantitative variations of some compounds were determined for localities. The major components were chrysanthenyl acetate (13.54 % - 24.49 %), 2,3,6-trimethylbenzaldehyde (5.94 % - 25.52 %), L-limonene (4.69 % - 27.44 %), alpha-pinene (7.64 % - 12.43 %), beta-myrcene (3.44 % - 10.38 %) and L-phellandrene (2.90 % - 9.75 %). Results showed that plants collected from different localities had different chemical compositions. Collection, selection and cultivation of different genotypes based on reported results could allow breeders to develop chemotypes for oil extraction and use.