Abstract
The essential oils from the aerial parts of three rare Australian endemic species of Darwinia have been extracted by hydrodistillation and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In D. procera, myrtenyl acetate (6.1-29.6%), α-pinene (6.9-25.1%), γ-terpinene (6.2-13.6%), bicyclogermacrene (5.5-10.8%) and (E)-nerolidol (3.4-9.7%) were the principal components detected. D. fascicularis ssp. fascicularis produced an oil in which (E)-nerolidol (33.0%), α-pinene (15.1%) and γ-terpinene (10.2%) were the principal components. In D. peduncularis the major constituents were α-pinene (33.5%), γ-terpinene (23.1%) and bicyclogermacrene (6.7%).
