Alain Muselli,* Jean-Marie Desjobert, Antoine-François Bernardini and Jean Costa

Abstract: The composition of the essential oil of Achillea ageratum L. from Corsica Island was investigated using a combination of gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) after fractionation over column chromatography. Sixty-eight compounds were identified, the main components being 1,8-cineole (41%), yomogi alcohol (22.3%), santolina alcohol (10%) and artemisyl acetate (7.6%). The chemical composition of Corsican A. ageratum oil differed from those reported in the literature. The use of two capillary columns with different polarity under optimal GC conditions allowed the identification and the quantification of santolina alcohol that was coeluted on both capillary columns used.

The genus <i>Achillea</i> L. (Asteraceae) includes more than 80 species widespread all around the northern hemisphere (1,2). Different species of this genus as ,i>A. aspenifolia</i> Vent. and <i>A. pratensis</i> have been widely used in traditional medicine mainly for their tonic, stimulant or anti-inflammatory activity in digestive diseases (3). Among them, <i>A. ageratum</i> L. is a fragrant, perennial plant of the Mediterranean region with yellow flowers, which was used as bioindicator of antimony availability in soil (4,5). Extracts of this plant have been widely studied. Several works reported on the isolation and structure elucidation of germacrane and elemane-type alcohols, ketones and acetates of artemisyl group and flavonoids (6-14). The occurrence of some pharmacologically active compounds in the extracts of <i>A. ageratum</i> has been reported, while three studies have demonstrated the cytostatic, anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic effects of <i>A. ageratum</i> (15–17). The chemical composition of the essential oils of species belonging to the genus <i>Achillea</i> have been widely studied (18), nevertheless, only three studies reported the chemical composition of <i>A. ageratum</i> oil. A sample oil from Italy, was characterized by artemisia acetate (46%), 1,8-cineole (19%) and yomogi alcohol (16%) as major components (19), while artemisia ketone (56%) and 1,8-cineole (11%) were identified as major components of a sample from Spain which exhibited spasmolytic action in rats and antibacterial activity (20,21). Finally, <i>A. ageratum</i> oil from Poland (22) was dominated by 1,8-cineole (percentage not reported). The aim of the present work was to characterize the composition of Corsican <i>A. ageratum</i> by analyzing its oil, which, to our knowledge, has not yet been investigated. The chromatographic profile of the oil suggested the occurrence of a large number of minor components and several incompletely resolved compounds which co-eluted. As a result, we chose to investigate the oil by a combination of GC and GC/MS equipped with two capillary columns of different polarity stationary phases, after fractionation over silica gel.