Studies on the Volatile Constituents from Cultivars of Prunus mume

Abstract:

Forty-five volatile constituents extracted from fresh flowers of five cultivars of Prunus mume, such as ‘Sanlun yudie’, ‘Beijing yudie’, ‘Danbaiyu’, ‘Danfen’ and ‘Jiangnan zhusha’, were identified by headspace solid-phase microextraction (SPME) with a DVB-CAR-PDMS 50/30 µm fiber and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results showed that aromatic compounds were dominated in volatile constituents. The kind and content of compounds caused difference in flower fragrances of cultivars, but some important compounds, such as namely n-hexyl acetate, eugenol, benzyl acetate and α-pinene were common in all cultivars, which was the reason that the fragrance in all cultivars were similar.

Key words:Prunus mume; Volatile constituents; HS-SPME; GC-MS