Three new oilseeds rich incis‐11‐eicosenoic acid

Abstract

Marshallia cacspitosa Nutt. seed oil (family Compositae) contains 44%cis‐11‐eicosenoic acid, and is the first oil from the Compositae found to contain a high proportion of C20‐monoenoic acid. Seed oils ofAlyssum maritimum (L.) Lam. and ofSelenia grandis Martin (family Cruciferae) contain 42 and 58% of the same acid, respectively. The C20 acids from all three oils were obtained in nearly pure form by fractional distillation of the mixed methyl esters by means of a spinning band column. Permanganate‐periodate oxidation of the purified methyl esters yielded predominantly nonanoic and undecanedioic acids.

Folk phytotherapy of the Amalfi Coast (Campania, Southern Italy)

“…No data have been found on its medicinal properties in other papers, except for the use against kidney stones in Sicily and in case of toothache (Barone, 1963) in Calabria. This plant contains kaempferol glycosides (Fiorentino et al, 2009) and its seeds are rich in cis-11-eicosenoic acid (Mikolajczak et al, 1963); some varieties can also synthesize acylated cyanidin 3-sambubioside-5-glucosides (Tatsuzawa et al, 2006) and respond to nickel and cadmium stress producing antioxidative enzymes (Schickler and Caspi, 1999).…”