Chemical Composition of the Essential Oil of Rhododendron lepidotum Wall. ex D. Don Growing in Kashmir Himalayas

Abstract The essential oil obtained by the hydrodistillation of the leaves of Rhododendron lepidotum L growing wild in the high Himalayas of Jammu and Kashmir was analyzed by a combination of capillary GC-FID and GC/MS analytical techniques. The study led to the identification and quantification of 34 chemical constituents belonging to different classes of compounds and accounting for 94.2% of the total oil composition. The oil composition is dominated by the presence of monoterpene hydrocarbons (78.9%). The principal components were α-pinene and β-pinene (54.4% and 12.5% respectively) along with limonene (6.5%), γ-terpinene (2.2%), bornyl acetate (2.8%) and α-humulene (4.2%).