Industrial Crops and Products 97 (2017) 166–174 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products jo u r n al homep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Aroma profile and essential oil composition of Rhus coriaria fruits from four Sicilian sites of collection Silvia Giovanelli a , Giulia Giusti a , Pier Luigi Cioni a , Pietro Minissale b , Daniela Ciccarelli c , Luisa Pistelli a,d,∗ a Dipartimento di Farmacia, Università di Pisa, via Bonanno 6 656126 Pisa, Italy b Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche Geologiche e Ambientali, Università di Catania, Via A. Longo 19, Catania 95125, Italy c Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Pisa, Via Luca Ghini 5, 56126 Pisa, Italy d Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca “Nutraceutica e Alimentazione per la Salute University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, 56124 Pisa, Italy a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 11 May 2016 Received in revised form 12 December 2016 Accepted 13 December 2016 Keywords: Sumac Anacardiaceae Volatiles Wild plants Cluster analysis Non-metric multidimensional scaling a b s t r a c t The volatile fractions and essential oils from Rhus coriaria fruits collected in four locations in Sicily (Italy) were characterized by GC–FID and GC–MS analysis. Monoterpenes were identified as the main class of constituents in volatiles spontaneously emitted by sumac fruits collected in two of the four sites (42.1–59.9% in ‘CNS’ and ‘CIN’ respectively), while non terpenic compounds predominated in the other two (46.1–52.8% in ‘MR’ and ‘CG’, respectively). The EO composition were characterized by high amount of non terpenic compounds (from 27.5 to 55.1%), followed by sesquiterpenes and diterpenes. p-anisaldehyde was the main constituent both in volatiles emitted by ‘CG’ sample and in its essential oil (28.4 and 20.8%, respectively). The comparison between the EOs obtained from the Sicilian samples differed from the EO obtained from sumac fruits purchased on the Jordanian market, even though a similar composition were evidenced with Turkish samples reported in the literature. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Rhus is a genus included in Anacardiaceae family and consists of about 200 species spread in the temperate and subtropical areas of the world. (http://www.theplantlist.org/browse/A/Anacardiaceae/ Rhus/). Four species are present in Italy (Pignatti, 1982): R. tripartita (Ucria) Grande, R. pentaphylla (Jacq.) Desf. (South-East of Sicily), R. typhina L. and R. coriaria L. Three of them are typical of Sicily island, while R. typhina is growing in Alpi mountains and in the North-East regions of Italy. Rhus coriaria was one of the most important culti- vation of Sicily during the Nineteenth century for the extraction of tannin (Inzenga 1874). In the island it is a taxon of probable ancient introduction, as supposed by Inzenga (1874). Recently Conti et al. Abbreviations: HPLC-DAD/QTOF-MS, high performance liquid chromatogra- phy coupled with electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry; HS-SPME, headspace–solid phase microextraction; GC–EIMS, gas chromatography with electron impact mass spectrometry. ∗ Corresponding author at: Dipartimento di Farmacia, Università di Pisa, via Bonanno 6, 56126 Pisa, Italy. E-mail addresses: silvia.giovanelli84@gmail.com (S. Giovanelli), giuliako88@hotmail.it (G. Giusti), pierluigi.cioni@libero.it (P.L. Cioni), p.minissale@unict.it (P. Minissale), daniela.ciccarelli@unipi.it (D. Ciccarelli), luisa.pistelli@unipi.it (L. Pistelli). (2005) treats this species as alien naturalized taxon among the flora of Italy, but its story would require further investigations. This species is commonly known as Sumac, because the name is originated from ‘sumaga’, meaning red in Syriac language (Shabbir, 2012). In Italy it is known as “Sommacco siciliano”. It is a shrub or small tree 1–3 m high, with leaves imparipinnate (with 9–15 leaflets). Inflorescence is a compact and erect panicle. The flowers are small and greenish white coloured; the fruit is 1-seeded drupe hirsute, reddish and dark red when ripe (Shabbir, 2012). Rhus cori- aria is used for its economical importance in the leather (for its high tannin content), pharmacy and food industries. It is also cultivated as an ornamental tree. Rhus coriaria L. is a very important ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine from Jordan to Egypt where it is used as spice, to give sour lemon taste to grilled meats and stews, but in rice and vegetable dishes too. This plant is used in traditional medicine of Jordan for sweating and cholesterol reduction and in the treatment of diar- rhoea. Other reports indicated that Sumac showed antibacterial (Fazeli et al., 2007; Adwan et al., 2009; Iauk et al., 1998; Nasar- Abbas and Halkman, 2004) and hypoglycemic activities (Shabbir, 2012), even though the antioxidant property has been investigated more recently (Kosar et al., 2007; Aliakbarlu et al., 2013; Nasar- Abbas and Halkman, 2004) due to the presence of tannin fractions, both in leaves and fruits. According to its health promoting prop- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.12.018 0926-6690/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.