Industrial Crops and Products 65 (2015) 315–323 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products jo ur nal home p age: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Phenotypic diversity and volatile composition of Iranian Artemisia dracunculus Ali Karimi a , Javad Hadian a,∗ , Mohsen Farzaneh a , Abdollah Khadivi-Khub b,∗ a Department of Agriculture, Medicinal Plants and Drug Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, Tehran 1483963113, Iran b Department of Horticultural Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Arak University, Arak 38156-8-8349, Iran a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 9 September 2014 Received in revised form 27 November 2014 Accepted 1 December 2014 Keywords: Tarragon Artemisia dracunculus Volatile oil Morphological variables Cluster analysis a b s t r a c t Artemisia dracunculus (tarragon) has been used orally as an antiepileptic remedy in Iranian folkloric medicine. In the current study, the morphological variation and the essential oil composition from the aerial parts of the plant were evaluated. The results indicated significant differences among genotypes for morphological traits and clustering based on these traits classified the genotypes into two clusters. The essential oil content ranged from 1.42 to 2.53 v/w. Analysis of the essential oil revealed the presence of methyl chavicol (68.21–81.11%), limonene (7.18–16.73%), terpinolene (0.01–7.68%), (Z)--ocimene (0.89–4.99%), (E)--ocimene (0.81–4.52%), methyl eugenol (0.90–2.67%) and -pinene (0.43–1.91%) as the main components. Variables related to leaf were found to be associated with all phytochemical com- positions, indicating a main role of leaf on production of these compounds. These data collectively demonstrated large phenotypic and chemical diversity among the selected genotypes which can be considered as a valuable gene pool for breeding programs. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Plants may be a main source to provide drugs in traditional medicine. Aromatic plants are often applied in traditional medicine as antimicrobial agents and their essential oils, mixtures of nat- ural volatile compounds extracted by steam distillation, have been known since antiquity to possess antifungal and antibacte- rial characteristics. Some essential oils have indicated important antimicrobial activity against dermatophyte, yeasts, bacteria, and Aspergillus strains (Lawrence, 2005; Lopes-Lutz et al., 2008), and have therapeutic potential, mainly in diseases involving cutaneous, mucosal, and respiratory tract infections. Phenolic compounds (ter- penoids and phenylpropanoids) including thymol, carvacrol or eugenol, are the main components for many of these essential oils, of which have antioxidant and antimicrobial activities (Lawrence, 2005). Besides, the essential oils are widely used in different indus- tries such as perfumery, cosmetics, and food. Asteraceae is the greatest family in the flowering plants with about 1535 genera comprising approximately 23,000 species, among which many are applied for their medicinal properties. One of the important genuses in this family is Artemisia. This genus has approximately 800 species which are widely distributed ∗ Corresponding authors. Tel.: +98 21 29903023; fax: +98 21 29903023. E-mail addresses: j hadian@sbu.ac.ir (J. Hadian), a-khadivi@araku.ac.ir (A. Khadivi-Khub). throughout the world. Artemisia genus is industrially important due to its antifungal, insecticidal, allelopathic, antibacterial, and other characteristics. Furthermore, the plant is useful in Unani, Home- opathy, Ayurveda, and Siddha (Ved and Goraya, 2008). Biological activities and phytochemical composition for essential oils of dif- ferent species of Artemisia have been recently reported (Kordali et al., 2005a,b; Lopes-Lutz et al., 2008). Artemisia dracunculus L. (tarragon) is an important species in Artemisia genus and has high phenotypic and genotypic diversity. Also, this species has high variability in reproductive behavior and component of essential oils. This plant is widely distributed in Japan, India, Iran, Europe, North America and China (Hooker, 1882). This species is considered for its aromatic values in medicinal prop- erties, edibles, salads, and in tarragon vinegar preparation which is cultivated for long time in Iran. Tarragon is used in functional foods or as dietary supplements (Poulev et al., 2004). Biological prop- erties and useful characteristics of A. dracunculus are reviewed in a report currently (Aglarova et al., 2008). The species is useful as radical-scavenging activities and insecticide (Saadali et al., 2001; Parejo et al., 2002). Essential oil compositions of A. dracunculus have antibacterial (Deans and Svobada, 1988), antitumor, antifungal, and DNA damaging effects (Zani et al., 1991 Meepagala et al., 2002). The dried aerial parts of A. dracunculus are applied to treat epilepsy in traditional medicine in Iran (Aqili Khorasani, 1992). Moreover, several studies indicated that methanolics of A. dracunculus had anticonvulsant benzodiazepines (Kavvadias et al., 2000). Further- more, monoterpenes of essential oils in A. dracunculus have sedative http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2014.12.003 0926-6690/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.