Chemical Composition Essential Oil of Hors Mint (Mentha longifolia) as a Rich Source of Pulegone From Five Wild Habitats of Fars Province

Horse Mint (Mentha longifolia synMentha sylvestris) is a valuable medicinal and aromatic plant belonging to Lamiaceae family. This plant has been used traditionally as stimulative, tonic, antispasm, antiflatulence, gall bladderastringent and mild soothing in Iran. The aim of this study was to evaluate the essential oils content and composition of Mentha longifolia L. from five wild habitats of Fars province.
The aerial parts of Mentha longifolia L. at flowering stage were collected from the wild habitats of these plants and dried in shadow. The air-dried aerial parts of samples were subjected to hydrodistillation method, using Clevenger apparatus. The constituents of essential oils were determined by GC and GC/MS.
The results showed that the highest and lowest oil content were obtained from Marvdasht (5.5%) and Larestan (1.17 %) ecotypes, respectively. In total, 33, 32, 26, 27 and 28 components were identified and quantified in the oil samples of Sepidan, Waterfall Margoon, Jahrum, Larestan and Marodasht ecotypes, respectively. In general, essential oils were characterized by high amounts of oxygenated monoterpene compounds. The major components were pulegone (25.36-53.44 %), piperitenone (4.93-43.9 %), 1, 8-cineole (1.1-13.33 %), piperitenone oxid (1.06-19.33 %) and menthone (0/98-10/28 %).
According to the medicinal value of pulegone, in this research the horse mint oil had high percentage of this compound and can be concluded that the plant from Fars provience is a rich source of pulegone. For obtaining the highest oil content and pulegone, the best ecotypes were Marvdasht and Waterfall Margoon, respectively.