Pittosporum undulatum Vent. grown in Portugal: secretory structures, seasonal variation and enantiomeric composition of its essential oil

Abstract

Aerial parts of Pittosporum undulatum were collected fortnightly for 1 year at the Parque de Saúde de Lisboa. Collective samples of two populations were investigated, i.e. from pruned and non-pruned trees, and in addition samples from one pruned and one non-pruned individual. An SEM study of the aerial parts showed the presence of nonglandular T-shaped trichomes, and capitate trichomes with an elongated stalk and two to four round-shaped cells on the top. Numerous canals were seen at the level of the capsule wall as well as in the leaves and stems. Essential oil samples were isolated from the (deep-frozen) aerial parts by hydrodistillation to estimate the oil yields, and by distillation-extraction to determine their percentage composition, and analysed by GC and GC-MS. Monoterpenes (59-97%) were dominant in all oils, sabinene (5-58%), limonene (2-37%) and terpinen-4-ol (4 -27%) being the major components, although in different relative amounts during the year of collection. Benzyl benzoate (8%) and benzyl salicylate (10%) attained high relative amounts in the oils from fully developed flowers, whereas in the oils from the other plant parts their relative amounts did not exceed 1%. The enantiomeric ratio of sabinene, limonene and terpinen-4-ol was investigated in the leaf, flower and capsule oils, showing dominance of the (+ + + + +)-forms and homogeneity between all the oil samples.

Distribution, habitat and biomass of Pittosporum undulatum, the most important woody plant invader in the Azores Archipelago

“…Likewise, a considerable area were P. undulatum is not the dominant species was also excluded from the calculations. That is, P. undulatum could still be used in the small scale activities mentioned above as well as in other possible alternatives like essential oil production (Ferreira et al, 2007;Lago et al, 2006).…”

Species Distribution Modeling: Comparison of Fixed and Mixed Effects Models Using INLA

“…Sweet pittosporum [86] is a long lived evergreen tree native to forests in southeastern Australia that grows up to 15 m [87][88][89]. It is invasive outside its native range in Australia, in the Portuguese mainland, in the Azores, North America, Southern Africa and in many oceanic islands [88][89][90][91][92].…”

“…It is invasive outside its native range in Australia, in the Portuguese mainland, in the Azores, North America, Southern Africa and in many oceanic islands [88][89][90][91][92]. For more information see the reviews by Hortal et al [67] and Lourenço et al [92].…”

Composition of the leaf, flower and fruit volatile oils of Pittosporum tobira (Thunb.) W. T. Aiton grown in three locations in Portugal

“…The volatile oil from P. tobira shows major differences to that of P. undulatum, which also grows in PSL; the oil of the latter species is dominated by the monoterpene fraction [8][9][10] (Table 4). These differences may account for the traditional distinction between the orange-like P. tobira odour and the jasmine-like P. undulatum aroma.…”

“…Aiming at a more complete knowledge of P. tobira through a full GC-MS analysis of the volatile oil composition of different plant parts that have not been previously studied, and secondly, in continuation of our previous work on this species 6,7 and of another study on Pittosporum undulatum 8,9,10 grown in Portugal, we report in this paper for the first time on the volatile oil composition of the leaves and fruits (capsules) of P. tobira; we compared it with that of the flowers, and we studied the seasonal variation.…”