Study of chemical composition of the Pimpinella olivierioides Boiss. & Hausskn. essential oils from Iran

Pimpinella,with about 170-180 species in the world, is one of the largest genus of Apiaceae. Based on the flora of Iran, there are 25 species of Pimpinella in Iranian plateau, so that 22 species with six endemic species are found in Iran. P. olivierioides Boiss. & Hausskn. is distributed in West and Central Iran. The aim of this study was to determine chemical composition of P. olivierioides essential oil. The plant parts of P. olivieroides were collected at flowering stage from Nahavand (Hamedan Province), on July 2012. The plant organs including stem and leaf and inflorescence were dried in laboratory and crushed to particles. The essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The yield of stem and leaf essential oils (w/w dried weight) was 0.09%, root 0.52% and inflorescence 0.57%. The major components of stem and leaf, root and inflorescence essential oils were Germacrene D (36.5%, 21.9% and 11.1%), Bicyclogermacrene (7.5%, 15.9% and 4.4%), respectively. b-bisabolene (24.9%) was found only in root essential oil. Trans-pinocamphene (14.7%) and cis-pinocamphene (13.4%) were found only in stem and leaf essential oils. The interesting thing about the essential oils was their colors. The color of stem and leaf, root and inflorescence essential oils was light blue, blue, and green grass, respectively. Our results clearly showed that very different compositions were found in the essential oil of P. olivierioides organs.