Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Aerial parts of Myrtus communis L. were collected from National Botanical Garden of Iran in Sep. 1998 and steam distilled after drying in the phytochemistry lab. The amount of essential oil which was produced from 85 grams of the dry leaves was negligible so that we extracted it from water by n-Hexane. Fresh leaves were also steam distilled in order to compare it's composition with dry one. In this case an oil was produced at the yield of 0.45% (based on fresh leaves).
Oil composition of dry and fresh leaves were determined quantiavely/qualitavely by GC and GC/MS. Thirty-two compounds were identified in each one, which were 96.3% of dry and 96.1% of fresh total weights, repectively.
Among identified compounds, 1,8-cineole (23.4,17.9%), a-acetate (6.1,4.8%) were the major constituents, respectively.