The essential oil of the fruit of Zizyphus lotus (L.) Desf. belonging to the Rhamnaceae family, was obtained by steam distillation and analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS. 38 components were identified corresponding to 92% of the total oil. Fatty acids represented the major fraction (78.9%), followed by hydrocarbons (10.8%) while terpenic fraction constituted only 1.1% of the oil (- and β-eudesmol). The fatty acids fraction contained 23 saturated and unsaturated compounds (67.8 and 11%, respectively) from C8 to C18. The major constituents are in decreasing order: ethyl hexadecanoate (12%), decanoic acid (11%), ethyl dodecanoate (9.4%), ethyl hexadec-9-enoate (7.9%), dodecanoic acid (6.5%), ethyl tetradecanoate (6.1%) and tetradecanoic acid (5%). Several studies described the fatty acid composition of different parts of Zizyphus species in the fixed oil. Our study is the first report devoted to the chemical composition of the essential oil of the fruit of this species. The antioxidant property of this oil was evaluated using β-carotene bleaching method.

The essential oil of the aerial parts of Centaurea sempervirens L. (Asteraceae), synonym : Cheirolophus sempervirens (L.) Pomel, was obtained by steam distillation and analyzed by GC-FID and GC-MS. 30 components were identified corresponding to 78.5% of the total oil. Among the identified constituents, oxygenated compounds represented 33.4%, from which 21.2% were hydrocarbons, 10.7% were sesquiterpenes. The non oxygenated compounds were hydrocarbons (9.8%). Phthalates represented 35.3% of the total oil. The major components were 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-one (12.4%) and epi-torilenol (5.1%). This is the first report on the chemical composition of the essential oil of this species.