In collaboration with Scientific Association of Iranian Medicinal Plants

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MS Student of Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

2 Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands, Tehran, Iran

3 Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

4 Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of Hamedan Province, Hamedan, Iran

Abstract

Different species from Labiatea family are used as spices and fragrance in food or as medicine for treatment of viral or microbial diseases in many countries. Labiatea family contains 46 genus and 410 species. One of the valuable and medicinal species of this family is Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam. subsp. rigida (Boiss.). This species contains essential oil with pulegone as major compound. In this investigation, the effect of some ecological factors on essential oil content and composition of Z. clinopodioides was studied. The aerial parts of Z. clinopodioides have been collected at flowering stage from four habitats in Hamedan and Kurdestan provinces. The major parameters like altitude, side and slope percentage, soil characteristics and other species of plant were determined. The plant materials have been subjected to hydro-distillation in three replications to obtain their essential oils. The essential oils were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The results showed that ecological factors had significant effect (a=0.01) on oil yields. Identification of chemical constituents of the oils showed that main compounds (pulegone and 1,8-cineole) and minor compounds exist in different percentage in different habitats. Therfore, the ecological factors affected essential oil composition of Z. clinopodioides.

Keywords