Composition of Essential Oil from Seeds and Cones of Abies Alba

Abstract

The volatile composition of Abies alba Mill. seeds and cone scales has been studied, leading to the determination of 90 volatile constituents. The major component of the seed essential oil was (-)-limonene (about 70%), while that of the cone scale oil was α-pinene (57%). Monoterpene hydrocarbons were predominant in both oils, but the quantitative and qualitative composition of the volatile compounds was specific for each part of the tree.

Abies Concolor Seeds and Cones as New Source of Essential Oils—Composition and Biological Activity

“…It is important that the levorotatory form of limonene in the seed oil was in great majority (≥97%). This valuable flavor compound, and exactly its levorotatory enantiomer, was also the main component of silver [15,16] and Korean fir seed essential oils [14,15,16,17]. Our results indicated that α-pinene (58 g/100 g), sabinene (11 g/100 g), and β-pinene (4.5 g/100 g) were the predominant components of the Abies concolor cone oil.…”

“…Seed oil was also characterized by very attractive forestry, resinous, fresh, citrus-like scent, opposite to less attractive, resinous, soil-like scent of cone oil, caused inter alia , probably by a bigger amount of high boiling volatiles, like the diterpenes that are detected in cone oil. The yield of A. concolor seed oil is slightly higher than the average yield of oil from A. koreana seeds (4.9%) [14], while being much lower in comparison with Abies alba seed oils (7.4–14.3%) [15,16]. Chromatographic and spectroscopic methods allowed us to identify 98 compounds in the examined essential oils, which constituted 92.3 g/100 g and 96.8 g/100 g of cone and seed oils, respectively.…”

“…The main terpene group detected in both seed and cone essential oils were monoterpene hydrocarbons, constituting 93 g/100 g and 79 g/100 g, respectively, like in the Abies concolor needle essential oils, where the concentration of this terpene group was about 90% [7,8,9,10]. Monoterpene hydrocarbons were also a predominant chemical group in the oils that were isolated from seeds and cones of both Abies alba [15,16] and A. koreana [14,15,16], The dominant monoterpene hydrocarbons and at the same time the main constituents of examined seed essential oil were limonene (47 g/100 g) and α-pinene (40 g/100 g). It is important that the levorotatory form of limonene in the seed oil was in great majority (≥97%).…”

“…Bornyl acetate, which has been found in the tested A. concolor seed and cone oil at a very low level (0.33 and 0.31 g/100 g, respectively), had been found previously as the main oxygenated monoterpene, as well as one of the main volatiles, both in A. koreana seed (up to 18.6%) and cone (up to 12.4%) oils [14,16], however the content of this compound depended strongly on the tree specimen. Interestingly, bornyl acetate constituted only traces in the Abies alba seed and cone essential oils [15,16]. …”

“…Seed essential oil is characterized by traces of only one diterpene, i.e., abieta-8(14),9(11),13-triene. High boiling diterpenes also occurred at a very low level, both in the white fir needle oils [7,8,9,10,11] and in the silver and Korean fir seed and cone essential oils (<0.3%) [14,15,16,17]. …”