Volatile components from aerial parts of Centaurea spinosociliata Seenus ssp. cristata (Bartl.) Dostál and Centaurea spinosociliata Seenus ssp. spinosociliata growing wild in Croatia

The paper reports on the volatile components oil from aerial parts of two Asteraceae growing wild in Croatia: Centaurea spinosociliata ssp. cristata (syn. Centaurea cristata Bartl. subsp. rabenhorstiana (Sch.Bip.) Nyman) (CSC) and C. spinosociliata ssp. spinosociliata (CSS). The volatile components were obtained by hydrodistillation from selected plants and were determined by the GC-MS system on two fused-silica capillary columns of different polarity. The oil content was 0.08 % (CSC) and 0.07 % (CSS) on a dry weight basis. Altogether 73 compounds were identified accounting for 90.8 % (CSC) and 92.8 % (CSS) of the total oil, that were characterized mainly by hydrocarbons (37.9 %; 30.4 %), sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (14.1 %; 29.1 %), oxygenated sesquiterpenes (22.2 %; 13.1 %). The major components of the samples were heptacosane (11.2 %; 12.6 %), cyclosativene (2.1 %; 6.4 %), caryophyllene oxide (10.2 %; 4.7 %). Monoterpenes, fatty acids and phenolic compounds were absent or present in low amount in both oils. The chemotaxonomy of the subgenus Acrolophus is briefly discussed.