High Amounts of n-Alkanes in the Composition of Asphodelus aestivus Brot. Flower Essential Oil from Cyprus

Abstract

There is only a couple of reports indicating essential oil composition of Asphodelus species in the literature. However, from the members of this genus many non-volatile secondary metabolites were isolated. In Cyprus, Asphodelus aestivus Brot. can be found abundantly in all regions of the island. This plant has various ethnobotanical uses in Cyprus. There is no report on the volatiles nor the essential oil composition of A. aestivus. The smell of A. aestivus flowers resembles that of a cat pee which caught our attention. Therefore, we have carried out GC, GC/MS analysis of the essential oil (yield: 0.01 v/w) obtained from Asphodelus aestivus flowers. Seventeen compounds were identified in the essential oil comprising 96.2% of the oil. The major components of the essential oil were hexadecanoic acid 35.6%, pentacosane 17.4%, tricosane 13.4% and heptacosane 8.4%. In our results, we expected to see sulfur containing cat pee odorants due to the odor of the flower whereas high amounts of n-alkanes, saturated fatty acids and minor amounts of acyclic diterpenes were observed.