Chemical Composition of the Essential Oil from Marrubium persicum C. A. Mey. (Lamiaceae)

Background: the essential oil of maruubium persicum c. a. mey (lamiaceae) was obtained by hydrodistillation from aerial parts of the plant during flowering stage. methods: the chemical analyses of the essential oil by gc/ms and gc/fid, allowed us to identify thirty three compounds, representing 94.4% of the total oil. results: the essential oil of m. persicum was typically a complex mixture of mainly oxygenated non-terpenoids (51.5%), sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (27.9%), oxygenated sesquiterpenes (4.8%), monoterpene hydrocarbons (9%), and oxygenated monoterpenes (1.3%). the major components of the essential oil were m-tolualdehyde (19.2%) followed by acetophenone (14.6%), germacrene d (10.5%), b-caryophyllene (7.4%), b-farnesene (6.2%), and ?-pinene (4.6%). conclusion: in spite of the fact that marrubium sp. contain quite lower amounts of aliphatic and non-terpenoid fractions, m. persicum revealed rather higher proportions of non-terpenoid compounds, namely acetophenone with different isomers of tolualdehyde which are considered to be reported for the first time in the genus marrubium.