Investigation on volatile compounds of three growing wild medicinal plants (Labiateae Fmily) in the city of Kashmar

In order to gain knowledge on behavior of plant species in environments contaminated to mineral elements, the shoots of three wild species including Eremostachys macrophylla Monthbr & Auch, Salvia leriifolia Benth. , and Teucrium polium L.,  from Labiateae family were collected from the city of Kashmar and their essential oil was extracted by hydro distillation method and analyzed by GC/MS. In the oil of Eremostachys macrophyla, 21 compounds were identified, forming 92% of total oil. The major compound was α-pinene (60.1%). In the essential oil of Salvia leriifolia, 12 compounds (97% of total oil) were identified. Artemisia ketone (62.9%) and cubenol (9.4%) were identified as the major compounds. Fourteen compounds (98.8% of total oil) were identified in the oil of Teucrium polium including 1,8-cineole (21.7%), cis-chrysanthenol (13.8%), chrysanthenone (13.6%) and 3-thujopsanone (11.7%), as the major compounds. The comparison of oil percentage and also compounds showed that Eremostachys behaved differently compared to other two genera. With regard to the same collection area, three different genera from one family with different absorption ability in terms of some of the elements in the soil and also changes in secondary metabolites (in the biosynthetic pathway), it was expected that quite different results would be obtained but in this study, the two mentioned genera showed relatively similar behavior to the environment.