Composition, antibacterial and antioxidant activity of the essential oil ofThymus numidicus Poiret from Constantine (Algeria)

The chemical composition of the hydrodistilled esse ntial oil of Thymus numidicus Poiret, collected fro m Constantine (Eastern Algerian), was analyzed by GC and GC/MS. 3components representing 98.14% % of the essential oil were detected with thymol (23,92%), linalool (17.20 %), o-cymene (11.41%), γ-terpinene (10.84%), thymol methyl ether (6,73%) and carvacrol (6,02%) as the major c omponents. The antibacterial activity of the essent ial oil was tested against 10 gram-positive and gram-negative bby the use of the disc diffusion method. Th e antioxidant activity was also investigated by the use of β-carotene bleaching method.