Acta Pharm. 49 (1999) 299-305

Short communication  
 

Comparative analysis of essential oil composition of Origanum vulgare from Macedonia and commercially available Origani herba

ROBERTINA HRISTOVA,1 MIHAILO RISTIC,2  DEJAN BRKIC,2
GJOSHE STEFKOV,3  and  SVETLANA KULEVANOVA3*

1Department for Vegetable and Flower Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
2Institute for Medicinal Plant Research »Dr. Josip Pancic«, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia
3 Institute of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
Received June 8, 1999      Accepted November 11, 1999

The composition of the essential oil of Origanum vulgare L. (Lamiaceae) from Macedonia was examined by analytical GC-FID and GC-MS techniques. Three different populations of the taxa were investigated and compared to commercial sample of Origani herba. More than fifty components were separated in the oils, twenty of them were identified, representing 68.6-91.5% of the whole oils. Three wildly growing Origanum in comparison to the commercial sample (3.1%). The essential oils from three samples of wild origano were non-phenolic, without carvacrol and with traces of thymol (0.1-1.7%). These oils contained alfa-pinene (40.0-67.5%) and beta-caryophyllene (7.4-26.6%) as major constituents. The commercial sample contained higher amount of alfa-pinene, too, but the most important constituents of the oil were thymol (31.1%) and carvacrol (36.4%).


Keywords: Origanum vulgare L. (Lamiaceae), essential oil, composition, GC-FID, GC-MS