0139–3006/$ 20.00 © 2016 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Acta Alimentaria, Vol. 45 (2), pp. 268–276 (2016) DOI: 10.1556/066.2016.45.2.14 SEASONAL VARIATION IN PHENOLIC CONTENT AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF GLECHOMA HEDERACEA L. HARVESTED FROM SIX HUNGARIAN POPULATIONS L. VARGA a *, R. ENGEL b , K. SZABÓ b , L. ABRANKÓ c , B. GOSZTOLA a , É. ZÁMBORINÉ NÉMETH a and S. SÁROSI a a Department of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Faculty of Horticultural Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest, H-1118 Budapest, Villányi út 29–33. Hungary b MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany, H-2163 Vácrátót, Alkotmány utca 2–4. Hungary c Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Food Science, Corvinus University of Budapest, H-1118 Budapest, Villányi út 29–33. Hungary (Received: 4 April 2015; accepted: 22 June 2015) Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea L.) is one of the prosperous plants for the food-industry as natural antioxidant. This fact led us to examine the chemical diversity of six ground ivy populations situated in different natural habitats and to analyse the effect of the harvesting time. Total phenolic content, chlorogenic acid, and rutin content, as well as the antioxidant capacity showed significant differences due to the harvest time. The highest total phenol content (115 mg g –1 GAE) and the strongest antioxidant activity (53.3 mg g –1 AAE) were measured in the population originated from Budapest (GLE 6), harvested in July. The highest chlorogenic acid (357 mg/100 g) and rutin (950 mg/100 g) contents were detected in the July harvested samples from the Soroksár Botanical Garden population (GLE 1). According to our results, the collection time has significant effect on the total phenolic content – first of all on the chlorogenic acid and rutin accumulation levels of ground ivy, while the influence of the habitat seems to be less important. Keywords: ground ivy, chlorogenic acid, rutin, vegetation time, habitat Glechoma hederacea L. is a broad-leafed, creeping perennial plant, which is distributed in the temperate climate of the Northern Hemisphere. In the European folk medicine the flowering shoots and leaves were used as tonic and diuretic agent against gall or kidney stones (GRIEVE, 1976). Many studies highlight the significant antioxidant effect of its herbal extract (MATKOWSKI, 2008; BARROS et al., 2010). MILOVANOVIC and co-workers (2010) proved a concentration dependent antioxidant activity in pork lard treated with ground-ivy alcoholic extract. Among the bioactive compounds, chlorogenic acid (BELŠČAK-CVITANOVIĆ et al., 2011), rosmarinic acid (MATKOWSKI, 2008; DÖRING & PETERSEN, 2014; XIE et al., 2014), flavonoids as apigenin, luteolin, quercetagetin, rutin (YAMAUCHI et al., 2007; XIE et al., 2014), ascorbic acid and α-, β-, γ-, δ-tocopherols (BARROS et al., 2010) have been isolated from these species. In Europe the raw material of ground ivy is still collected from the wild populations. Information on the plant material, concerning habitat, location, optimal harvesting time, is practically incomplete. In the genus, the effect of these factors has only been studied in the closely related Glechoma longituba species: LIU and co-workers (2012) studied 29 different * To whom correspondenceshould be addressed. Phone: +36-1-305-7100 ext. 6250; fax: +36-1-305-7100 ext. 6330; e-mail: uvarga@gmail.com