Chemical composition of the volatiles of three wild Bergenia species from western China

Volatiles were distilled from leaves of three Bergenia species collected from Yunnan, Xinjiang and Tibet in western China and analyzed using GC/MS instrumentation. The contents of extractable volatiles varied substantially among the three species with B. crassifolia having approximately 0.05% dry wt (v/w), B. purpurscens 0.01% (v/w) and B. stracheyi 0.13% (v/w), respectively. In B. crassifolia , the main components were present as 3‐methyl‐2‐buten‐1‐ol (26.56%), hexadecanoic acid (16.06%), dodecanoic acid (9.99%), linalool (5.63%) and octadecadienoic acid (4.10%). In B. purpurascens , the main components were β ‐eudesmol (18.63%), phytol (14.50%), hexadecanoic acid (13.05%), n ‐nonacosane (9.19%) and 3‐methyl‐2‐buten‐1‐ol (7.52%). In B. stracheyi , 3‐methyl‐2‐buten‐1‐ol was the dominant sort of volatile (52.71%), whereas detected major constituents included β ‐eudesmol (7.44%), damascenone (3.22%), caryophyllene (2.75%) and phytol (2.57%). Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.