Constituents of Artemisia indica Willd. from Uttarakhand Himalaya: A source of davanone

The genus Artemisia is important due to its medicinal properties as well as vital aroma compounds of commercial value.

The aim of the study was to explore the potential of the essential oil of Artemisia indica wildly growing in Uttarakhand.

The aerial parts of Artemisia indica Willd. (Asteraceae), collected from wild growing habitat of Garhwal Himalaya, Uttarakhand (north of India) at full flowering stage were hydro-distilled and gave pale yellow oil with the yield of 0.8% (v/w). The obtained essential oil was analyzed by GC and GC-MS and identified 32 components, amounting 95.42% of the oil.

Among detected compounds, the principal component was found to be davanone (30.80%), followed by β-pinene (15.30%) and germacrene-D (5.82%).

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on A. indica from Himalayan region of India, which detected davanone as major component. The species, collected from a specific location, can be explored for isolation of davanone for its industrial utilization and as alternate source of Artemisia pallens, which have already established commercial value.