Chemical constituents of volatile fractions fromEchinops ellenbeckiiO. Hoffm

The essential oil and headspace volatiles from the root, stem, leaf and flower head of Echinops ellenbeckii O. Hoffm. were obtained by steam distillation and headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME). The samples were then analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). Using the HS-SPME analysis, twenty-eight compounds (20.4 %) were identified in the root, twenty-three (55.4 %) in the stem, nineteen (32.2 %) in the leaf and fourteen (16.0 %) in the flower. From the steam distillate, twenty-two (18.7 %), four (15.4 %), nine (39.7 %) and twenty-eight (92.9 %) compounds were observed in the root, stem, leaf and flower, respectively. Using both methods of extraction, seventy compounds were detected in the whole plant. The main sesquiterpene constituents were β-selinene (3.14 %) in the flower, β-maaliene (4.04 %) in the root, caryophyllene oxide (4.93 %) in the leaf and cyperene (8.64 %) in the root. The root were found to have the largest number of sesquiterpene constituents followed by the flower. Stems and leaves contained few amounts of the terpene compounds and higher proportions of aliphatic hydrocarbons and their oxygenated forms.