Chemical composition of the volatile oil from flowers and leaves of new Passiflora hybrids

Passiflora is a genus of the Passifloraceae family with more than five hundred species, which are known for their edible fruits, their therapeutic properties and ornamental purposes, and they are very attractive both for the horticultural sector as well as for the herbal and pharmaceutical industry. A detailed chemical composition of Passiflora essential oil has been reported only for few main species (e.g. P. edulis Sims and P. incarnata L.). In this article we evaluated for the first time the essential oil composition of three Passiflora ornamental hybrids, exploring fresh flowers and leaves by GC/FID and GC/MS. Several compounds were identified, with a peculiar distribution in the hybrids: benzyl alcohol (7.6%), geraniol (13.7%), phytol (14,3%), eugenol (3.9%), 2-phenylethanol (4.7%), cis-3-hexenal (2.8%) and palmitic acid (2%) were the main compounds of the essential oil of fresh leaves of the hybrid P. 'FSO-040711'; the highest percentages of benzyl alcohol (12.2%) and 2-phenylethanol (13.6%) were found in fresh flowers of P. 'FSO-130913' and the highest amount of phytol (38.5%) was present in the fresh leaves of P. 'FSO-080415'. Eugenol (5.3%) seems to be related to the typical honey/vanilla fragrance of the flowers of P. 'FSO-040711'. Industrial relevance. The main bulk of constituents of the volatile fractions of Passiflora hybrids were found to be hydrocarbons and alcohols, while terpens and aldehydes occurred in lower amount. We are currently focus on investigating the biological activity of the Passiflora oil extracts for perfumery and cosmetic industry.