Chemical Characterization of Leaves, Male and Female Flowers from Spontaneous Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) Growing in Hungary

Abstract

Spontaneous forms of hemp (Cannabis sativa L., often reported as Cannabis sativa var. spontanea Vavilov) with a low content of psychoactive cannabinoids can be considered as a valuable source of other phytoconstituents to be used in nutraceuticals or for their health promoting properties. Chemical data on this hemp variety are rather scarce. In this article, we report a comprehensive phytochemical characterization of leaves, male and female inflorescences of C. sativa growing wild in Hungary. For the purpose, the essential oil along with polar extracts were analyzed using GC/MS, NMR and LC‐DAD‐MS techniques, respectively. The results indicated that female inflorescence essential oil contains high amounts of the CB2 agonists, (E)‐caryophyllene (28.3 %) and cannabidiol (CBD; 24.9 %), whereas leaves and male inflorescence essential oils contained lower amounts of both compounds. HPLC/MS allowed to quantify cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabidiolic acid (CBD−A) in the ethyl acetate extracts from leaves, male and female inflorescences; they were 0.3, 0.8 and 0.9 %, and 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 %, respectively. Flavonoids of this spontaneous form of hemp were formed by C‐glycosides and glucuronic acids of kaempferol and apigenin with a total content of 3.8, 6.1 and 7.8 mg/g in methanolic extracts from leaves, male and female inflorescences, respectively. Based on these results, spontaneous C. sativa may represent an important source of CB2 agonists and bioflavonoids to be used in nutraceuticals, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Industrial, CBD, and Wild Hemp: How Different Are Their Essential Oil Profile and Antimicrobial Activity?

“…The concentration of this compound in the USA strain EO was 0.95%. Overall, the concentration of this EO compound in wild hemp from this study was similar to that in the literature reports on wild hemp from Austria and Hungary [ 15 , 18 ].…”

“…The monoterpenes pinene and limonene are the determinants of cannabis aroma in the immediate vicinity of the plant [ 12 ]. α-Pinene concentration in the EO in this study was comparable to previous reports from studies that used either steam or hydro-distillation [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ], but was lower than that in other reports [ 14 , 17 , 19 ] ( Table 3 ). The EO of wild hemp from Austria contained 20% of this compound in stems, but a much lower concentration in the leaves [ 15 ], while the EO of spontaneous (wild) hemp from Hungary contained 1.6, 2.9, and 0.7% of this compound in the leaves, male, and female flowers, respectively.…”

“…The concentration of this compound in the USA hemp strain EO was 0.47%. The concentration of this compound in the EO of wild hemp from Austria was <2.5% [ 15 ], while in the EO of spontaneous hemp from Hungary, it was 1.2, 1.1, and 0.6% in the leaves, male, and female flowers, respectively [ 18 ].…”

“…α-Bisabolol in the USA strain EO was 3.0 to 4.4%. Epi-α-bisabolol was reported in the EO of spontaneous hemp from Hungary [ 18 ].…”

Cannabis sativa L. Inflorescences from Monoecious Cultivars Grown in Central Italy: An Untargeted Chemical Characterization from Early Flowering to Ripening

“…Up to now, the NMR based metabolomic investigations regarding C. sativa L. have been focused on the study of plant tissues such as trichomes [21], cell suspensions [22] and inflorescences [23]. Only a partial assignment of the inflorescence NMR spectra is available in literature [23,24]. Here, a more complete assignment (Table 1) of the 1 H-NMR spectra of the hydroalcoholic extracts from Cannabis sativa L. inflorescences was reported allowing the identification of different classes of compounds.…”