The chemical composition of the aerial parts essential oil of Plectranthus ornatus growing wild in Israel.

Plectranthus L'Hér is a large genus of Lamiaceae family comprising of ca. 300 species distributed through the tropical and warm regions of the Old-World, including Africa, from Ethiopia to Tanzania, Asia and Australia. Several species are edible, and some ones have been also used as traditional medicinal of several countries. Phytochemical investigations on non-volatile metabolites of species of this genus indicated them of source of diterpenoids with abietane, phyllocladanes, kaurene skeleton. Plectranthus ornatus Codd. is an invasive, ornamental and traditional medicinal plant native of Central-East Africa, which was spread around the world by Portuguese, especially in the Americas. In the present communication, the aerial parts of P. ornatus , identified wild for the first time in Israel, were analysed for the composition of its essential oil, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Considerations with respect to all the other essential oils of P. ornatus accessions were carried out.