Chemical constituents of essential oils from the leaves, stems and roots of Zingiber pellitum Gagnep. (Zingiberaceae) from Vietnam, and their diversity

The chemical constituents of essential oils from Zingiber plants are known to exhibit chemical variability. The objective of this work was to analyze for the first time the contents and the chemical diversity of the essential oils from the leaves, stems and roots of Zingiber pellitum Gagnep, belonging to Zingiberaceae family collected in Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Vietnam. The essential oils were isolated by hydrodistillation and their constituents were investigated by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS-FID). The essential oils from Z. pellitum were obtained in yield of 0.20% (leaves), 0.12% (stems) and 0.27% (roots). The essential oils from the leaves of Z. pellitum consist mainly of beta-caryophyllene (51.7%), beta-pinene (12.0%), alpha-pinene (10.0%), while beta-caryophyllene (24.9%), beta-pinene (19.8%) and alpha-humulene (18.8%) were the main constituents of the stems essential oil. On the other hand, 9-epi(E)-caryophyllene (7.5%), humulene epoxide II (7.4%), alpha-humulene (6.4%), caryophyllene oxide (5.9%), beta-caryophyllene (4.9%), camphene (4.3%), epi-alpha-cadinol (4.0%) and cyperotundone (4.0%) were the significant compounds of essential oil from the roots of Z. pellitum. Since the composition of the studied leaves, stems and roots of Z. pellitum essential oils differed considerably from each other and previous reports on the other parts of the plant, the paper discusses further the chemotaxonomic implications of the obtained data with respect to Zingiber pellitum and other Zingiber essential oils from Vietnam.