Essential oils of the air-dried aerial parts of five populations of Thymus migricus Klokov & Desj.-Shost. collected from northwest Iran were obtained by hydrodistillation with yield of 1.1-3.3% (w/w). The essential oils were analyzed by a combination of GC-FID and GC-MS techniques, to check for chemical variability. According to populations, twenty-nine components, representing 97.3-99.3% of the total components, were identified. Oxygenated monoterpenes were the main group of constituents in all samples (65.2-78.5%). Thymol (46.6-72.5%), γ-terpinene (6.2-16.7%), p-cymene (4.0-6.5%), n-hexadecanol (0.4-6.5%), geraniol (0.5-4.7%), limonene (0.0-3.5%) and carvacrol (0.5-3.4%) represented the major compounds. Two chemotypes were identified: thymol and thymol/linalool. In addition, canonical correlation analysis between some essential oil characters and some environmental factors revealed a significant relationship between oil components and environmental factors. The influence of environmental factors over p-cymene, γ-terpinene, linalool and thymol was evident. Essential oil yield was fairly strongly related to the concentrations of Ca 2+ and K + , percentage of organic matter, altitude, temperature, and soil texture.

To ascertain whether there are chemical and genetic relationships among some Thymus species and also to determine correlation between these two sets of data, the essential-oil composition and genetic variability of six populations of Thymus including: T. daenensis ČELAK. (two populations), T. fallax FISCH. & C.A.MEY., T. fedtschenkoi RONNIGER, T. migricus KLOKOV & DES.-SHOST., and T. vulgaris L. were analyzed by GC and GC/MS, and also by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Thus, 27 individuals were analyzed using 16 RAPD primers, which generated 264 polymorphic scorable bands and volatiles isolated by distillation extraction were subjected to GC and GC/MS analyses. The yields of oils ranged from 2.1 to 3.8% (v/w), and 34 components were identified, amounting to a total percentage of 97.8-99.9%. RAPD Markers allowed a perfect distinction between the different species based on their distinctive genetic background. However, they did not show identical clustering with the volatile-oil profiles.

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Thymus migricus Klokov & Desj.-Shost. was collected at full flowering stage fromNorthwest of Iran. The essential oil of the air-dried aerial parts was obtained by hydrodistillation with a yield of 1.8 % (w/w). The essential oil was analyzed by combination of GC and GC-MS. Twenty compounds were identified, representing about 99.2 % of the total detected constituents. The main constituents of the essential oil were thymol (55.6 %), γ-terpinene (16.7 %), geraniol (4.6 %), pcymene (4.0 %), limonene (2.6 %) E-Caryophyllene (1.9 %) and α-Pinene (1.8 %).