Compositional variability in essential oil from different parts of Alpinia speciosa from India.

The essential oils from the leaves, flowers and roots of cultivated Alpinia speciosa K. Schum. were examined by capillary GC and GC-MS. Monoterpenoids composed 89.6% of the total identified constituents of the leaf oil, out of which 59.3% were oxygenated, represented mainly by terpinen-4-ol (28.4%) and 1,8-cineole (19.2%). The flower and leaf oils had a uniform qualitative, but different quantitative composition. However, the flowers oil was also dominated by oxygenated monoterpenoids (68.9%) viz., terpinen-4-ol (26.0%), 1,8-cineole (24.4%) and linalool (6.1%), along with the monoterpene hydrocarbon, sabinene (11.3%). On the contrary, the root oil had an entirely different composition and was characterized by endo-fenchyl acetate (40.1%), 1,8-cineole (11.8%), camphene (7.8%), bornyl acetate (6.9%) and borneol (5.8%). Moreover, endo-fenchyl acetate, exo-fenchyl acetate and endo-fenchol were characteristic of only the A. speciosa root oil.