Study of quantitative and qualitative variations in essential oils of sicilian Rosmarinus officinalis L.

In this study the chemical characterizations of 10 sicilian biotypes of Rosmarinus officinalis L. essential oils are reported. The main goal was to analyze the relationship between the essential oils yield and the geographical distribution of the species plants. The essential oils were analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS. The statistical methods Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis were used to cluster biotypes according to the chemical composition of the essential oils. The essential oil yield ranged from 0.8 - 2.3 (v/w). 82 compounds have been identified, these represent 96.7-99.9% of the essential oil. The compounds mostly represented in the essential oils were: 1.8- Cineole, Linalool, α-Terpineol, verbenone, α-Pinene, Limonene, Bornyl acetate and Terpinolene. The results shown that the essential oil yield of the 10 biotypes tested, is affected by the environmental characteristics of the sampling sites, while the chemical composition is linked to the genetic characteristics of different biotypes.