Essential Oils and Their Constituents. Isolation of Aromatic Sesquiterpenes from Reunion Vetiver Oil

The occurrence of three aromatic sesquiterpene hydrocarbons in Reunion vetiver oil is reported for the first time. One of these was identified as α-calacorene. The others were found to be new compounds. Spectral and gas chromatographic characteristics as well as the results of hydrogenation and dehydrogenation experiments on the new sesquiterpenes, called A and B, are recorded. Sesquiterpene A may be tentatively represented as a dehydro-curcumene (VI), while sesquiterpene B is a cadalene-type hydrocarbon.