Essential Oils of Wild and Cultivated Lippia javanica (Spreng) and L. oatesii (Rolfe) from Zimbabwe

Abstract The essential oils of wild and cultivated Lippia javanica (Spreng) and of wild L. oatesii (Rolfe) from Zimbabwe were obtained by steam distillation of the fresh and air-dried plant material and examined by GC and GC/MS. The oil composition of L. javanica collected in the wild from nine different centres was variable with one or more of the following being the major components: linalool (1.8–68.8%), myrcene (0.5–54.0%), limonene (0.4–39.9%), 2,6-dimethylstyrene (trace-26.9%), neral and geranial (trace-29.3%) and geraniol (trace-15.8%). Cultivated L. javanica from two pilot centers contained myrcene (33.1–52.4%) and linalool (1.7–19.1%) as the main components. The oil from fresh and air dried X. oatesii collected from the wild contained geranial (23.0–38.9%), neral (18.1–28.5%), p-cymene (6.8–25.7%) and α-phellandrene (2.9–16.8%) as the major components. The two plants are potential sources of oils and important constituents and cultivation trials for L. oatesii are underway.