Essential oil composition of wild populations of Salvia lavandulifolia Vahl. from Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) q David Herraiz-Peñalver a, * , Jaime Usano-Alemany a , Joaquin Cuadrado a , Maria Jose Jordan b , Vanessa Lax b , Jose Antonio Sotomayor b , Jesús Palá-Paúl c a Centro de Investigación Agraria de Albaladejito, Consejería de Agricultura, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, Ctra, Toledo-Cuenca, km 174,16194 Cuenca, Spain b Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario, Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia, 30150 La Alberca (Murcia), Spain c Dpto. Biología Vegetal I (Botánica), Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain article info Article history: Received 11 March 2010 Accepted 31 October 2010 Available online 4 December 2010 Keywords: Salvia lavandulifolia Lamiaceae Essential oil 1,8-Cineole Camphor 1. Introduction Salvia genus is one of the wide-spread members of the Lamiaceae family. Around 1000 species of Salvia are distributed from North and South America, through Europe to Asia (Kintzios, 2000). Spanish sage (Salvia lavandulifolia Vahl.) is native from the Iberian Peninsula and it is the species of the genus most commonly grown in this area. This plant can be found in the West Mediterranean area in altitudes from 300 to more than 1000 m above the sea level preferring slightly deep, limy and basic soils (Berdonces i Serra, 2007). It is very well adapted to the semiarid Mediterranean climate. A high morphological and chemical diversity in Salvia genus species has been observed (Skoula et al., 1999; Bernáth and Németh, 2000 and references therein). Morales (2010) describes five different S. lavandulifolia subspecies: Subsp. lav- andulifolia, Subsp. vellerea (Cuatr.) Rivas Goday & Rivas Mart., Subsp. mariolensis (Figuerola) Alcazar & De la Torre, Subsp. blancoana (Webb & Heldr.) Rosua & Blanca, and Subsp. oxyodon (Webb & Heldr.) Rivas Goday & Rivas Mart. Moreover, high intraspecific variations can be observed depending on the climatic, geographical, seasonal conditions and genotypic factors by comparing essential oil composition (Guillén et al., 1995; Dweck, 2000; Giannouli and Kintzios, 2000). S. lavandulifolia has been used in traditional medicine for its therapeutic properties and some chemical and pharmacological studies are described in the literature. Newall et al. (1996) and Todorov et al. (1984) described spasmolytic activity of Salvia q Part of this paper has been presented as an oral presentation at the 39th International Symposium on Essential Oils, Quedlinburg (Germany), Sept. 4–7, 2008. * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ34 969 212388; fax: þ34 969 232151. E-mail address: dherraiz@jccm.es (D. Herraiz-Peñalver). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biochemical Systematics and Ecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biochemsyseco 0305-1978/$ – see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bse.2010.10.015 Biochemical Systematics and Ecology 38 (2010) 1224–1230