Hashem Akhlaghi, Abdolhossein Rustaiyan,* Kambiz Larijani, Ali Shafaghat, Nasrin Masnabadi and Shiva Masoudi

Abstract: The essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation of the flowers, stems and leaves of Astragalus schahrudensis Bge, endemic in Iran, were analazed by GC and GC/MS. Seventeen compounds representing 96.6% of the flower oil of A. schahrudensis were identified; among them, germacrene D (47.6%) and germacrene B (17.8%) were the major ones. The stem oil was characterized by higher amount of β-selinene(29.4%),δ-guaiene (21.7%), α-guaiene (13.4%) and α-selinene (10.9%) among the 14 components comprising 94.6% of the total oil detected. Eighteen compounds representing 97.3% of the leaf oil of the plant were identified; among them, α-pinene (33.8%) bornyl acetate (14.2%), limonene (12.2%) and α-fenchyl acetate (10.0%) were the major ones. The flower and stem oils of A.schahrudensis consisted mainly of sesquiterpenes, while in leaf oil monoterpenes predominated over sesquiterpenes.

The genus Astragalus (Papilionaceae) contains about 800 species of perennial and annual plants, most of which are endemic in Iran (1,2). Previous chemical investigation on different species of Astragalus, have shown the presence of triterpene glycosides (3-7). Our study deals with the analyses of the flower, stem and leaf oils of A.schahrudensis Bge. grown wild in Iran.