Planta Med 2011; 77 - PE17
DOI: 10.1055/s-0031-1282348

Comparative assessment on efficiency and compounds of Ferula gummosa Boiss. essential oils at two different harvesting areas of Alborz mountains in Iran

A Gillvari 1, A Hosseini Gezir 1, AR Panahian 1, R Shakeri 2
  • 1International Desert Researches Center, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
  • 2Behbahan Higher Education Complex, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

Ferula gummosa Boiss. from Umbelliferae family (Baridje in Persian and Galbanum in English) is one of the most important medicinal plants of Iran mountains area which has industrial applications, too. The northern steeps with 2000–4000 altitude and soils of well drained and deep, rich of humus and different quantity of lime are the best growth region for Galbanum, as ecological investigation have been shown. Galbanum exudes sap-like exudate which contains 10–26% essential oils, 60–75% resins and 5–30% carbohydrates, roughly1. It must be noticed that no alkaloids and phenol compounds have been found; except some trace of saponin and tannin. Non -carbohydrate portion of Galbanum can be extracted with ethanol. Incineration is used to determine the quality of exudates, results in ash content that must not exceed 10%. In this study, the percentage and essential oil components of Galbanum harvested from Tehran and Semnan provinces were investigated. The oleo-gum-resin was submitted to steam distillation. The essential oil, with yellowish appearance and specific gravity of 0.865–0.89, was analysed using GC/MS. α-pinene, β-pinene, myrcene, δ-3 carene, limonene, fenchyl acetate and guaiol identified, among which limonene and fenchyl acetate ranked highest and lowest percentage, respectively2. The identified compounds have significant differences at the two locations, that means at northern slope of Alborz in Tehran, essential oils yields 2.16–2.44%, whereas 1.23% was assigned to southern slope in Semnan.

Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the International Desert Researches Center, University of Tehran for financial support of this work.

References: [1] Zargari A (1986) Medical Plant, Vol 2, University of Tehran Press. Tehran. p 598 (in Persian).

[2] Mozaffarian V (1987) Umbelliferae Family Plants in Iran. Researches Institute of Forests and Rangeland press. Tehran (in Persian).