The Essential Oil and Glycosidically Bound Volatile Compounds ofTaxus canadensisMarsh

Essential oil composition of Taxus wallichiana Zucc. from the Northern Himalayan region of India

“…The other minor constituents present in the oil were geraniol (2.4%), anisaldehyde (2.3%), α-pinene (2.1%), n-heptanol (2.1%), geranyl-n-heptanoate (1.8%), trans-pinene hydrate (1.8%), methyl salicylate (1.9%), camphor (1.4%), cis-3-hexenyl acetate (1.6%), geranyl tiglate (1.6%), isopropyl n-octanoate (1.3%), benzaldehyde (1.3%) and amyl anisoate (1.2%). On comparing our results with those reported by Jean et al 19 for Canadian yew Taxus canadensis Marsh, significant differences were observed in the percentage and chemical composition of the leaf oil constituents. In T. canadensis, 1-octen-3-ol (44.6%), (E)-2-hexenal (24.1%) were the major constituents, while hexanal (2.1%), (Z)-3-hexenol (2.0%), occidentalol (1.4%) and hexanol (1.0%) were the minor constituents.…”

“…Compounds of this class probably colour the red paste made from the bark of Himalayan yew, used by the Brahmins of India to mark their foreheads with a red dot. To the best of our knowledge essential oil composition and glycosidically bound volatile compounds of T. canadensis have been reported by Jean et al 19 and T. baccata by Erdemoglu et al, 20 which prompted us to carry out detailed GC and GC/MS analysis of hitherto uninvestigated leaf volatiles of T. wallichiana.…”

“…The individual peaks were identified by comparison of their retention indices on the BP-1 and BP-20 columns with literature values. [19][20][21] The final confirmation of constituents was made by computer matching of the mass spectra of peaks with Wiley and NIST libraries mass spectral database and literature. 21,22 Chirality analysis was not performed.…”

The Glycosidically Bound Volatile Compounds ofPicea mariana(Mill.) B.S.P.

“…Bornyl acetate is the major constituent (36-48%) of the oil and borneol is the second most important aglycone (9.5%) obtained on hydrolyzing the glycosides with cellulase. Strikingly, to our knowledge, only two of the monoterpene alcohol aglycones we identified, terpinen-4-01 and a-terpineol, present as minor constituents in P. muriana, were found in other Coniferae species (7,8). …”

“…This is also the case with the other phenyl glycosides with the notable exception of eugenol. The relative ease of phenyl glucoside hydrolysis by P-glucosidase was observed in the glycosidically bound volatiles of Hyssopus officinalis (9) and the foliage of Taxus canadensis (8). The next most important compounds are the monoterpene alcohols, linalool (20% with P-glucosidase) and borneol (9.5%), an unidentified monoterpene alcohol (9%) and linalool(7%) using cellulase.…”