By Tahar Dob, Tayeb Berramdane and Chaabane Chelghoum

Abstract: Abstract: Needles of Pinus halepensis Mill. were collected from three different locations at Sidi Feradj (SF), Djelfa (Dj) and Saïda (Sd) in Algeria. Their oils isolated by hydrodistillation yielding 0.5% from SF, 0.8% from Dj and 0.9% from Sd, have been investigated for their components by means of GC and GC/MS techniques. More then 41 compounds were identified in the needle oils of Sidi Feradj (SF) and Saïda (Sd) and 39 compounds in Djelfa (Dj). The main constituents of three samples of P. halepensis leaf oil were β-caryophyllene (19.8–25.8%), followed by α-humulene (6.2%) in SF and 10.5% in Sd and aromadendrene (8.5%) in Dj, while the third constituents were aromadendrene (4.2%) in SF and α-pinene (5.2%) in Dj and 6.4% in Sd. Key Word Index: Pinus halepensis, Pinaceae, Aleppo pine, essential oil composition, β-caryophyllene, α-humulene.

Introduction
The genus Pinus belongs to Pinaceae family comprising about 250 species (1). The group Halepensis comprises two major species: Pinus halepensis (Aleppo pine) and Pinus brutia (Brutia pine). Morphological and anatomical studies showed that they are distinguished by numerous trials (2,3). Pine is widely used in traditional therapeutic and pharmaceutical practice in the world (4,5). A large part of the phytochemical analysis of Pinus species is due to the presence of essential oils (6–12), flavonoids (13) and alkaloids (14). Several phytochemical analyses of P. halepensis have already been published on the essential oils (15–20), terpenes (21–26), turpentine (27) and phenolic compounds (28).

In this paper we describe the chemical composition of the leaf oils of P. halepensis harvested from three different regions of Algeria. Also, we compare with the oils produced by other P. halepensis grown in different geographical regions in the world.