The volatile constituents of Artemisia annua L. plants, grown in the field in The Netherlands from seeds of Chinese and Vietnamese origin, were investigated using GC and GC–MS (EI, NICI) analysis. The plants grown from Chinese seeds contained 4.0% (v/w) essential oil on a dry weight (DW) basis, those from Vietnamese seeds, 1.4% (v/w). More than forty compounds were identified. The principal component of the Chinese oil was artemisia ketone (63.9%); other major constituents included artemisia alcohol (7.5%), myrcene (5.1%), α‐guaiene (4.7%) and camphor (3.3%). In the Vietnamese oil the main components were camphor (21.8%) and germacrene‐D (18.3%); other important constituents were β‐caryophyllene (5.6%), trans‐β‐farnesene (3.8%) and 1,8‐cineole (3.1%). In the Vietnamese variety the terpenoid biosynthesis proceeded further towards sesquiterpenes, whereas in the Chinese predominantly monoterpenes were formed. This was also reflected in the artemisinin contents, found in dichloromethane extracts of the herbaceous plant material: 0.17% (DW) in Chinese and 1.00% (DW) in Vietnamese plants. We suggest that the differences in the essential oil composition may be ascribed to the existence of different A. annua chemotypes. In a dichloromethane extract of the roots several non‐volatile sesquiterpenes were found. The main constituent was a new compound, which was identified tentatively as arteannuic alcohol.

Planto Med. 58, Supplement issue 11992Posters Under the homogeneous field conditions, significant differencies in all the examined parameters were recorded for the ten tested cultivars. The Egyptian cultivar confirms its good yields and its very high estragole content, beside the low fenchone content; only the Turkish cultivar yielded a higher amount of essential oil per hectare than the Egyptian one, but also this oil was poor in fenchone. The Polish cultivar presented the highest fenchone content, built was unsatisfactory due to the low global yield. Among the other cuhivars, the French A showed the highest essential oil content, with a good global yield, and the Albanian one showed the highest anethole content in the essential oil, but a poor global yield.From the presented data, it can be concluded that further strains have to be tested in order to either choose the best for cultivation, or to identify different characteristics that could be intoduced into a breeding program in the future.