Abstract
The volatile and semi-volatile terpenoids in the latex of Euphorbia amygdaloides, E. exigua, E. helioscopia, and E. peplus were analyzed by headspace, solidphase micro-extraction (HS-SPME), coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The volatiles were extracted using a 100 μm polydimethylsiloxane SPME fiber under optimized extraction conditions. The compounds detected encompassed a range of chemical classes, but only terpenoids were evaluated. Only sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were detected in the tested samples of E. exigua, E. helioscopia, and E. peplus, with β-caryophyllene being the major one, but were never recorded in latex samples of E. amygdaloides, in which only the diterpene hydrocarbon kaur-16-ene was detected. α-Humulene was consistently found in samples of E. helioscopia, and E. peplus, but never in those of the other two species. These preliminary results show that the developed procedure is suitable for the analysis of small samples of Euphorbia latex and that, for each individual species, there is very little qualitative difference between samples, regardless of either place or date of collection.