By Flora Haider, A.A. Naqvi and G.D.Bagchi

Abstract: Abstract: Essential oils obtained from the aerial parts of Artemisia nilagirica (Clarke) Pamp. var. septentrionalis Pamp. harvested during different growth phases were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The oil yield was highest (0.6%) during the flowering stage. During the vegetative, budding and fruiting stages camphor was the main constituent, while during the flowering stage, it was replaced by β-caryophyllene. Other important constituents of the oil were germacrene D, α-humulene and 1,8-cineole. Key Word Index: Artemisia nilagirica var. septentrionalis, Asteraceae, essential oil composition, camphor, β-caryophyllene.

Plant Name
Artemisia nilagirica (Clarke) Pamp. var. septentrionalis Pamp. (Asteraceae) plants are found in western Himalayas at an altitude of 1500–2200 m (1).

Source
Live plants of A. nilagirica var. septentrionalis were, collected in May 2000 from Mussoorie, Uttaranchal, India (altitude 2205 m), and were first acclimatized under glass house conditions. In October 2001, on the onset of the winter season, plants were moved to experimental plots on a CIMAP research farm, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (altitude 120 m). A voucher specimen (No. 4912) of the plant has been deposited in the Herbarium of CIMAP, Lucknow.

Plant Parts
Aerial parts of the plants were collected during the vegetative (15th May, 2002), budding (15th September, 2002), flowering (1st October, 2002) and fruiting (30th October, 2002) stages.

Previous Work
Over 37 species of Artemisia are reported to occur in the temperate regions of India (1). Chemical analyses of oil of different Artemisia species have been done by many workers (2–15). An oil of A. nilagirica, collected during the flowering stage, from Chamoli, Garhwal Himalaya, has also been the subject of analysis (11). The oil yield was 0.2% on dry weight basis. The main constituents of the oil were camphor (9.7%), β-eudesmol (8.0%), 1,8-cineole (6.6%), borneol (5.3%), Artemisia alcohol (3.4%), camphene (2.6%), α-gurjunene (1.9%), p-cymene (1.6%), terpinen-4-ol (1.2%) and α-pinene (1.2%). However, analysis of oil of Artemisia nilagirica var. septentrionalis, has not been undertaken so far.