Composition of essential oil, concrete, absolute, wax and headspace volatiles of Murrarya paniculata (Linn.) Jack flowers

Murraya paniculata (Linn) Jack, syn. M. exotica Linn., commonly known as orange jessamine, is grown in gardens for its large clusters of fragrant flowers. Distillation of the fresh flowers in water furnished the essential oil in 0.027% yield. Extraction of the fresh flowers with pentane afforded the concrete (0.78%). Precipitating the waxes from the concrete with methanol gave absolute (0.62%). The chemical composition of essential oil, concrete, absolute and wax were analysed by GC and GC–MS. The components of essential oil in significant amounts were δ‐elemene (1.4%), (E)‐caryophyllene (3.6%), germacrene D (2.7%), (E)‐nerolidol (25.7%), benzyl benzoate (8.1%), phenyl ethyl benzoate (8.0%) and manool (18.7%). The major components in the concrete and absolute, respectively, were phenyl ethyl alcohol (2.9%, 3.0%), indole (0.8%, 1.0%), (E)‐nerolidol (6.5%, 7.0%), benzyl benzoate (5.0%, 6.5%), phenyl ethyl benzoate (8.0%, 8.6%) and manool (25.2%, 27.9%). The methanol‐insoluble wax contained (E)‐nerolidol (2.6%), manool (9.4%) and most of the fatty acids/esters. The composition of the volatile components in the headspace emitted by flowers still on the branch (live flowers) and also by the picked flowers was determined by HS–SPME on a PDMS fibre and these results are also presented. The major components found in the headspace were linalool, indole, (E)‐caryophyllene, germacrene D, bicyclogermacrene and (E,E)‐α‐farnesene.