Essential Oil Quality of Tetraploid Chamomile Cultivars Grown in Serbia

Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L. syn. Chamomilla recutita (L.) Rauschert) is a herb widely used in the form of dried flower heads (Matricariae flos) infusion tea and steam-distilled essential oil (Matricariae aetheroleum). The subject of this study is to determine the chemical composition of essential oil obtained from dry chamomile flowers of three tetraploid cultivars (‘Zloty Lan’, ‘Manzana’ and ‘Lutea’) grown in North Banat region, Serbia. Essential oil has been obtained by hydrodistillation process on Clevenger apparatus. Qualitative and quantitative composition of the oil was determined by GC-MS and GC-FID analysis. From 48 compounds detected in total, the most abundant class was sesquiterpene hydrocarbons. In ‘Zloty Lan’ and ‘Lutea’ the major compound was trans-β-farnesene while in ‘Manzana’ it was α-bisabolol.