436 I. JERKOVIC ET AL. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Flavour Fragr. J. 2003; 18: 436–440 FLAVOUR AND FRAGRANCE JOURNAL Flavour Fragr. J. 2003; 18: 436–440 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ffj.1246 Chemical variability of Artemisia vulgaris L. essential oils originated from the Mediterranean area of France and Croatia I. Jerkovic, 1 J. Mastelic, 1 M. Milos, 1 * F. Juteau, 2 V. Masotti 2 and J. Viano 2 1 Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Split, Teslina 10, 21000 Split, Croatia 2 Laboratoire Dynamique et Ressources du Végétal, EA Biodiversité 2202, UFR DENTES and SVTE, Université de Provence, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille cedex 3, France Received 20 March 2002 Revised 25 July 2002 Accepted 13 September 2002 ABSTRACT: The essential oils of Artemisia vulgaris L. originating from France and Croatia were subjected to detailed GC–MS analysis in order to determine possible similarities and differences between them and their chemical compositions, depending on the stage of development. Plant materials were collected in Provence (France) and Dalmatia (Croatia) at four different stages of development: vegetative (June), buds (July), flowering (August) and seeding (September). Comparison of the chemical composition and content, depending on phenological stages in both localities, shows qualitative similarity, but also the noticeable difference in the amounts of most components. First, the chemical composition of main compounds is very different; Croatian oils are rich in hydrocarbons, which are absent or present in low amounts in French oils. Also, with regard to the yield of essential oils, the yields from Croatian oils were higher (0.09– 0.61%) than these from French oil (0.04 –0.15%) at each development stage, respectively. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY WORDS: Artemisia vulgaris L.; mugwort; essential oil; seasonal variations; GC–MS Introduction Officinal mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris L., Family Asteraceae) is an aromatic plant frequently used in tradi- tional medicine of Mediterranean people. 1 Since the use of thujone-containing plants and products is limited by food regulations 2 it is useful, from an analytical or phyto- chemical point of view, to characterize the constituents that allow a differentiation of officinal mugwort from other thujone-containing plants, as noted by Wörner et al. 3 A number of earlier studies 4–7 generally showed large variation in chemical composition of officinal mugwort essential oils. The essential oils from French officinal mugwort was previously investigated by Carnat et al., 8 who concluded that their representative main compounds are α- and β-thujone, as well as 1,8-cineole, camphor, terpinene-4-ol and borneol. At present it is known that geographic origin influences the chemical composition of officinal mugwort essential oil: those from India are rich in α- and β-thujone, p-cymene and camphor, while in those from Poland the major oil compound is 1,8-cineole and in those from England it is linalool. 9 Mucciarelli et al. 10 showed that camphor and camphene are the main compounds from Italian officinal mugwort, and Pino et al. 11 emphasized caryophyllene oxide as the main com- pound of this plant from Cuba. To the best of our knowledge, an investigation of the essential oil of officinal mugwort from Croatia has not been reported to date. The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the essential oil contents and chemical compositions of mugwort collected in Dalmatia (Croatia) and southern France. The plants were analysed during four different stages of their development. Materials and Methods Materials Artemisia vulgaris plants were harvested in Provence (France) and Dalmatia (Croatia) at four different stages of development: vegetative (June), flower-buds (July), flowering (August) and seeding (September). Voucher specimens have been deposited in the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Split, Croatia and in the herbarium of the University of Provence, Marseille, France (MARS-2000.8). * Correspondence to: M. Milos, Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Split, Teslina 10, 21000 Split, Croatia. E-mail: milos@ktf-split.hr Contract/grant sponsor: Ministry of Science and Technology, Republic of Croatia; Contract/grant number: 011003. Contract/grant sponsor: TEST; Contract/grant number: TP-01/011-01.