The Moroccan Hypericum pubescens Boiss. accession: the essential oil chemical composition of its aerial parts

Abstract

Hypericum Tourn. ex L., is a very large genus of the Hypericaceae family that includes more than 500 taxa, distributed all over the world. Hypericum pubescens Boiss. is a perennial plant presents in Spain and Malta, North Africa and Sicily, belonging to Section Adenosepalum Spach (subsection Pubescentes N. Robson). The essential oil (EO) of H. pubescens has never been previously investigated, and in this study, the chemical composition of the EO of plants collected in Morocco (Hpm) was evaluated by GC-MS. The EO was characterised by a remarkable amount of monoterpenoid hydrocarbons (24.67%), with α-pinene as main constituent (21.55%), and by a notably large amount furfuryl heptanoate (17.61%). An update of the composition of all the EOs of Hypericum species belonging to Section Adenosepalum was carried out and their composition have been compared with the results obtained from the Moroccan accession of Hypericum pubescens.