Nassima Bendimerad, Sid Ahmed Taleb Bendiab, Katharina Breme and Xavier Fernandez*

Abstract: Aerial flowering parts of Sinapis arvensis L. growing in Algeria provided a pale, light yellow colored essential oil with a characteristic sulfury odor. The oil was found to be a complex mixture of aldehydes, nitriles, sulfur-containing compounds and mono- and sesquiterpenes. Seventy compounds accounting about 96.4% of the oil were characterized using capillary GC and GC/MS. Major compounds of the oil are dimethyl trisulfide (33.6%), heptadecane (10.5%), methylpentadecane (9.1%), 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecane-2-one (8.6%) and dimethyl tetrasulfide (7.3%).

Sinapis arvensis L. grows wildly in Europe and in the occidental part of Asia and North Africa, normally on nourishing, lime-rich soils. It is an annual and very common plant and it is found in cereal fields and on vacant lots. The height of the adult plant is about 30–80 cm, its flowers are yellow and its fruit is a silique. Its bloom time lasts from May to September. It is a member of the Cruciferae family and belongs to the genus Sinapis (2) The plant is used by the Algerian local people to nourish the sheep population in the desert region. It has also been used as an ingredient in local medicines such as cataplasm. It is a member of the Cruciferae family which is widely distributed and consists of approximately 340 genera and 3350 species (3). The essential oil is characterized by a very strong, pungent and sulfury odor. Previous studies of S. arvensis from Egypt revealed the isolation of several flavonoids from extracts of the flowers and leaves (4). Several glucosinolates have also been reported in the seed, in particular glucobrassicin, neoglucobrassicin and sinapin (1). To our knowledge, there is no report on chemical composition of S. arvensis essential oil. The aim of this paper is to present qualitative and quantitative analysis of the oil of this Cruciferae species growing in the Atlas region (Algeria).