Phytochemical analysis of the essential oil of Achillea millefolium L. from various European Countries

Abstract

Variations in the essential oil composition of Achillea millefolium L. growing in Estonia and in other European countries, were determined. The oils were obtained in yields of 0.9-9.5 mL kg-1. A total of 102 components were identified. The quantitatively most important components of yarrow were sabinene, beta-pinene, 1,8-cineole, artemisia ketone, linalool, alpha-thujone, beta-thujone, camphor, borneol, fenchyl acetate, bornyl acetate, (E)-beta-caryophyllene, germacrene D, caryophyllene oxide, beta-bisabolol, delta-cadinol, chamazulene etc. Samples from Estonia contained high amounts of monoterpenes and chamazulene. High amounts of monoterpenes and chamazulene were also found in samples from Hungary, Greek, Moldavia, Latvia, Lithuania and Germany. The oils from France, Belgium, Russia, Armenia, Spain and Italy were rich in oxygenated monoterpenes and contained a little amount of chamazulene. The drugs from Greece, Estonia, Moldavia and Scotland were rich in sesquiterpenes. The Millefolii herba grown in Estonia conforms to the European Pharmacopoeia (EP) standards in the aspect of the essential oil contents.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.): A Neglected Panacea? A Review of Ethnobotany, Bioactivity, and Biomedical Research1

“…Both in publications reviewed therein, and in later publications (notably, Orav et al 2006), considerable variation of chemotypes within A. millefolium is reported. In older literature, chemists generally did not provide adequate taxonomic information or cite voucher specimens that would allow the exact nature of study materials to be independently determined; therefore, some of the reported infrataxon variability in chemical content and bioactivity was probably due to the failure to distinguish between subspecies or species of the A. millefolium complex (Chandler et al 1982;Guédon et al 1993).…”

Antimicrobial activity of synthetic bornyl benzoates againstTrypanosoma cruzi

“…10 Borneol is a monoterpene commonly isolated from plants of different genera. [11][12][13] Borneol can also be produced by the reduction of camphor, which is used in traditional medicine for analgesia and anesthesia. In addition, this compound inhibits rat bone resorption 14 , by inhibiting the formation of osteoclasts 15 , and causes microtubule depolymerization.…”

Application of gas-liquid chromatography for standardization of herbal raw materials and herbal drugs

“…Achillea millefolium was studied by GC [26][27][28][29][30][31][32], therewith this herb was a component of an elixir [26]. Orav et al [28] compared the compositions of the essential oils of Achillea millefolium collected in different European countries.…”