Chemical composition and seasonal variation of essential oil of Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) Hochst subsp birrea leaves from Benin

Abstract

Essential oils from fresh leaves of Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) Hochst. were extracted by steam distillation. The oil yield from plant collected during the hot season (February) was 0.10±0.02 and 0.24±0.01% from plant collected during the cold season (August). GC/FID and GC/MS analysis allowed us to identify a total of 49 compounds, representing 98% of the hydrodistillate. The oils contained about 96% sesquiterpenes among which 38±0.034% of 7-epi-α-selinene during the hot season and 51.7±0.12% of 7-epi-α- selinene during the cold. The main components of the oil from the hot period were 7-epi-α-selinene (38±0.03%), α-muurolene (25±0.03%), valencene (17±0.06%), β-selinene (4.3±0.01), β-caryophyllene (3.2±0.02) allo-aromadendrene-epoxide (1.5±0.03) and 14-hydrox-α-humulene (1.5±0.03). The essential oil from the cold season was characterized by 7-epi-α-selinene (51.7±0.12%), β-selinene (15.1±0.2%), valencene (12.9±0.05%), α-selinene (8.1±0.03) and β-caryophyllene (1.8±0.02%). This is the first report of these components in the essential oil of Sclerocarya birrea.