Chemical diversity of essential oil from mint species in South of Brazil

Essential oils obtained from Mentha L. plants have various important economic uses. Our objective was to evaluate the content and chemical diversity of essential oils from different species of Mentha L. The study was carried out with 37 genotypes of Mentha from Southern Brazil (Parana state). The essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation, and the components of the samples were identified and quantified using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. The essential oil content data were submitted to analysis of variance using the Scott-Knott test, hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the chemical diversity of mint species. Mentha canadensis L. 'Japanese Field Mint' had the highest essential oil yield. The main constituents we found in the Mentha L. genotypes in our study were linalool, menthone, pulegone, carvone, piperitone oxide and menthol.