Chemical Composition of the Essential Oils from Leaves of Edible (Arachis hypogaea L.) and Perennial (Arachis glabrata Benth.) Peanut Plants

Peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a valuable oilseed crop, but other than the seed, the rest of the plant is of minimal value. Plant material including the leaves is used as soil conditioner or as animal feed. Perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata Benth and Arachis pintoi Krapov & W.C. Greg) known as forage or rhizoma peanut produces few seeds, but is grown specifically as a forage, turf or ornamental plant. The leaves from the peanut plants of the cultivated variety, Bailey and the perennial varieties, Arblick, Arbrook, and Amarillo were freeze dried, essential oils were extracted by distillation and the chemical compositions were determined using gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Oil yield from the A. hypogaea leaves was 0.0063 % (w/w). The major components were 1-octen-3-ol (12.4 %), heneicosane (11.7 %), nonanal (10.9 %), 4-vinylguaiacol (6.4 %) and phytol (7.4 %). The yield from A. glabrata and A. pintoi leaves ranged from 0.0044 % to 0.0061 % (w/w) with the major components in common among the three varieties tested 1-octen-3-ol (40.5-44.9 %), β-linalool (5.0-8.9 %) and 4-vinylguaiacol (1.4-8.6 %). © 2015 Har Krishan Bhalla & Sons.