Characterization of the Essential oil of the Bat-Pollinated Passiflora mucronata

Abstract

The genus Passiflora is an important source of food, therapeutic substances and for the horticultural economy. In the last decades, a detailed chemical composition of the essential oil of Passiflora species has been reported, but only for few species, mainly of agricultural interest, although little attention has been paid to chiropterophilous Passifloraceae, such as P. mucronata. The present study is focused on analyzing the essential oil composition of P. mucronata, a Brazilian bat-pollinated species. From GC/FID and GC/MS analyses of the volatile fraction from fresh flowers and leaves, hydrocarbons were quantified as 47.9% and 42.8% of the total volatiles of flowers and leaves, respectively, esters for 50.8% in flowers and 6.4% in leaves, and alcohols 38.2% and 0.3% of the total volatiles from leaves and flowers, respectively. Other classes of compounds, such as monoterpenes and aldehydes, together with phytol, were detected in higher concentration in leaves compared with flowers. The higher content of methyl and ethyl esters of long chain saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, i.e. ethyl linolenate (38.3%), methyl linolenate (7.0%) and ethyl palmitate (3.6%), were the most representative suggesting that esters might play a critical role for fertilization of P. mucronata acting as bat attractors.