The genus Elshoizia, a member of the Labiatae famil)r normally bears purple flowers ( Fig. 1), although white, pink, and red-purple forms also exist. Of its 20 species of herbaceous perennials and sub-shrubs, 5 occur in Korea (Lee, 1996). Most have been collected from the wild and possess volatile compounds (Hilton et al., 1995).The subject of numerous biological and chemical studies (Lange and Croteau, 1999;Skoula et al., 1999) have been studied, E. cilliata is known in Korea as HyangYoo, or flavor oil in Chinese characters. However, although each species contains essential oils, they have not been used for commercial production because their strong aroma does not meet marketing requirements. Such mixtures of volatile essential oils lend this characteristic odor to the plant foliage. Their terpenes have been widely used in studies of taxonomy (Skoula et al., 1999;Gross et al., 2002), phylogeny (Harborne and Tomas-Barberan (1991;Thompson et al., 2003), microbial activity (Cosentino et al., 1999;Vokou et al., 2002), and ecology (Zygadlo et al., 1996;Dudai et al., 1999;Pal~-Pa61 et al., 2001). Large fluctuations have been found in the concentrations of constituent compounds as a function of plant organ type as well as variations in season, location, and individual plant differences (Perry et al., 1999; Ahn et al., 2003). Moreover, the yield and composition of essential oils is affected by crop maturity at harvest, environmental conditions, and distillation practices. Therefore, the primarily objective in this study was to determine which particular volatile *Corresponding author; fax +82-55-244-6504 e-mail biokim@kyungnam.ac.kr compound is most responsible for the distinctive odor produced by E. cilliata.
MATERIALS AND METHODSLeaves of Elshoizia cilliata were gathered in 2002 from three environmentally similar sites at Mr. Muhak in Korea. The collections occurred at approximately two-week intervals during the maturing period of this species, with five plants at a similar development stage being sampled at each site. The leaves were sealed in plastic ba~ for transport. In the laborator~ 3-gram sampies were ground with pure sand, then treated with npentane and 1 ml of 1% tetradecane as an internal standard. The extracts were filtered with sodium sulfate and concentrated by evaporation with a gentle stream of nitrogen gas (Kim and Langenheim, 1994).Samples were assessed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS; Hewlett Packard 5890, USA), using a 30-m-long HP5 capillary column (0.25 mm i.d.) with a flame ionization detector. Helium served as the carrier gas. For the terpene analysis, the temperature program included an initial 37~ for 5 rain, followed by an increase to 180~ (rate of 5~ min-1), then to a final temperature of 320~ (20~ min-1). One JxL of the final extract was used for the analysis. Individual terp~ nes were identified by comparing the GC-MS results with retention times (based on references) as well as with spectral data from the internal Wiley instrument librar~ The concentrations of peaks at sele...