American Journal of Essential Oils and Natural Products

AUTHOR(S): Morgan R Bida, Angela Guerrero, Andrew Spellman, Sreya Antonia Gomes, Christopher Esquea, and Todd Pagano

ABSTRACT:This study reports the foliar oil composition of I.ekmanii from sites across two mountain ranges in the Dominican Republic and for I.hottense from Les-Cayes, Haiti. We used Clevenger hydro-distillation for extraction, GC-FID for quantification, and GC-MS, MS spectral libraries, and LRIs for identification. All of the Illicium samples in this study showed the presence of linalool (3.22-17.15%), α-terpineol (0.41-1.99%), α-cubebene (0.19-0.65%), α-copaene (4.03-26.99%), β-elemene (0.26-0.93%), β-caryophyllene (5.43-35.70%), α-humulene (0.86-3.53%), δ-cadinol (0.2-0.79%), and τ-muurolol (0.92-4.33%). I. hottense leaf oil was found to be sesquiterpene and oxygenated monoterpene-rich and was characterized by copious relative amounts of β-caryophyllene (35.70 ± 0.265 w/w), linalool (17.15 ± 0.215 w/w), and cis-methyl eugenol (12.08 ± 0.085 w/w), three compounds that made up 65% of the oil composition. I. ekmanii from the Cordillera Central range showed sesquiterpene-rich oils with an abundance of β-caryophyllene and α-copaene. In contrast, a sample from the Septentrional range showed an abundance of phenylpropenes in Salcedo, while another showed trace phenylpropenes and was sesquiterpene-rich in Isabelle Torres. Additional research into the phenylpropene-rich samples found in the Septentrional Range is warranted to determine if this essential oil composition is a chemotypical difference, an environmental difference, and/or warrants further taxonomical/molecular examination.

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