Chemical composition of the essential oil from the flowering aerial parts of Bupleurum hamiltonii Balak from Uttarakhand, India.

The essential oil from the flowering aerial parts of Bupleurum hamiltonii Balak syn. Bupleurum tenue family Apiaceae (Umbellifereae) was obtained by steam distillation and analysed by a combination of GC (RI) and GC-MS. The chemical composition of the isolated oil is reported here for the first time. Twenty-seven compounds were identified, which represent 92.7% of the total oil. The chemical composition of the isolated oil was characterised by a high proportion of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (61.9%), among which germacrene-D (17.8%), trans-β-farnesene (14.7%) and β-caryophyllene (13.1%) were the predominant compounds. The monoterpene hydrocarbons (16.6%) represented the second major fraction of the same oil followed by the oxygenated sesquiterpenes (7.9%).