FLAVOUR AND FRAGRANCE JOURNAL Flavour Fragr. J. 2003; 18: 13–14 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/ffj.1134 Essential oils of Ocimum basilicum L., O. basilicum. var. minimum L. and O. basilicum. var. purpurascens Benth. grown in north-eastern Brazil Maria Goretti de Vasconcelos Silva,* Francisco Jos ´ e de Abreu Matos, Maria Iracema Lacerda Machado and Afr ˆ anio Arag ˜ ao Craveiro Laborat ´ orio de Produtos Naturais, Departamento de Qu´ ımica Anal´ ıtica e Fisico-Qu´ ımica, Departamento de Qu´ ımica Org ˆ anica e Inorg ˆ anica, Universidade Federal do Cear ´ a, Cx Postal 12200, CEP 60021-970, Fortaleza, Cear ´ a, Brazil Received 7 June 2001 Revised 12 March 2002 Accepted 13 March 2002 ABSTRACT: Ocimum basilicum L. occurs everywhere in several forms, varieties and chemotypes whose essential oils presents marked variation on chemical composition. A new analysis of O. basilicum, O. basilicum var. minimum L. and O. basilicum var. purpuracens Benth. growing in north-eastern Brazil showed that O. basilicum var. minimum represented a true estragole chemotype, while the other two species analysed may be considered linalool chemotypes. Copyright  2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY WORDS: Ocimum basilicum; essential oil; estragole Introduction Ocimum basilicum L., O. basilicum var. minimum L. and O. basilicum var. purpuracens Benth., respec- tively named basil, minor basil and red basil (Brazilian names: manjeric˜ ao branco, manjeric˜ ao mi´ udo and man- jeric˜ ao roxo, respectively) are grown in home gardens in north-east Brazil, where they have been used since the seventeenth century (during the colonial period) for their insecticidal, antibacterial and antifungal activity and for ritualistic aromatic baths. They are used also for seasoning special foods. 1–2 Only O. basilicum oil has been commercialized (ca. 42.5 tonnes/year). 3 There are a vast number of references concerning the essen- tial oil of O. basilicum world-wide, 2–7 but no ref- erences to the essential oil composition of Brazilian plants were found. To determine the chemotype of the Brazilian Ocimum specimens growing in the Medici- nal Plant Garden of the Federal University of Cear´ a, chemical studies of its essential oils were performed by GC–MS. * Correspondence to: Maria Goretti de Vasconcelos Silva, Laborat´ orio de Produtos Naturais, Departamento de Qu´ ımica Anal´ ıtica e Fisico- Qu´ ımica, Departamento de Qu´ ımica Orgˆ anica e Inorgˆ anica, Universi- dade Federal do Cear´ a, Cx Postal 12200, CEP 60021-970, Fortaleza, Cear´ a, Brazil. E-mail: mgvsilva@ufc.br Contract/grant sponsor: CNPq. Contract/grant sponsor: FUNCAP. Experimental Plant Material Leaves of the three cultivar of the species Ocimum basilicum L., O. basilicum var. minimum L. and O. basi- licum var. purpuracens Benth. were collected in Medic- inal Plant Gardens of UFC in Fortaleza, CE, from adult plants and submitted to extraction by steam distillation immediately. Voucher specimens Nos 18.670 (for Oci- mum basilicum L.), 17.611 (for O. basilicum var. mini- mum L.) and 18.777 (for O. basilicum var. purpuracens Benth.) were deposited in. Essential Oil Extraction and Analysis Samples (1 kg) of fresh material were extracted by steam distillation for 1 h, each sample codified as following: F2493 for O. basilicum L., F2491 for O. basilicum var. minimum L. and F2546 for O. basilicum var. purpuracens. Analyses were done by GC–MS in a Hewlett-Packard 5971 GC–MS instrument under the following conditions: column, dimethylpolysiloxane DB-1 fused silica capillary column (30 m ð 0.25 mm, film thickness 0.1 μm); carrier gas, helium at 1 ml/min; injector temperature, 250 ° C; detector temperature, 200 ° C; column temperature, 35–180 ° C at 4 ° C/min then 180–250 ° C at 10 ° C/min; mass spectra, electronic impact 70 eV. Individual components were identified by spectrometric analyses using two computer library MS Copyright  2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.