Composition of the essential oil of Tagetes tenuifolia Cav. and Tagetes filifolia Lag. from Guatemala

Tagetes tenuifolia Cav. grows in México, Central America, Colombia and Peru at 300–2700 m high. Tagetes filifolia Lag. is found in México, Central America, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. The purpose of the study was to determine the composition of the essential oil of both plants growing wild in Guatemala to evaluate their potential for oil production. Thus, during 2018 aerial parts of T. tenuifolia and T. filifolia were collected in Sololá at 1500 m high at west of Guatemala and in Jutiapa at 800 m high at east of Guatemala respectively, yielding 0.6% and 0.1% of essential oil respectively by hydrodistillation. The main components in the oils analyzed by GC/MS and GC/FID were: 3-caren-2-one (44.5 %), (Z)-tagetone (11.5 %), (E)-ocimenone (10.5 %) and dihydrotagetone (5.5 %) for T. tenuifolia differing of results obtained for T. tenuifolia cultivated in Italy which presented E)-ocimenone as the major component [1]. (E)-anethole (73.4 %) and methyl chavicol (7.2 %) were the main components found for T. filifolia in this study similarly to the results reported in Peru [2] which presented (E)-anethole as the major component for the oil, but differing from the oil of the plant cultivated in Italy which presented methyl chavicol as the major component [1]. The domestication and cultivation of the plants for oil production could be an alternative to improve the income of the population of the regions characterized by high poverty indexes but further studies regarding biological and pharmacological activities are recommended.

• References

• 1 Marotti M, Piccaglia R, Biavati B, Marotti I. Characterization and yield evaluation of essential oils from different Tagetes species. J Essent Oil Res 2004; 16: 440-444
• 2 De Feo V, Della Porta G, Urrunaga Soria E, Urrunaga Soria R, Senatore F. Composition of the essential oil of Tagetes filifolia Lag. Flavour Frag J 1998; 13: 145-147