Conclusion
Moderate to good antioxidant activities in β-carotene-linoleic acid test and presence of considerable amounts of unsaturated hydrocarbons may explain the plant traditional use in asthma and dyspnea. These findings also candidate it as a good choice for investigating its possible modern medical applications.
Methods
Simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) and GC-Mass-FID analysis were used for the plant volatile materials chemical composition identification and quantification. Several antioxidant tests including DPPH radical scavenging, hydrogen peroxide scavenging, reducing power determination, β-carotene-linoleic acid and total phenolic content tests were used for antioxidant activity evaluation. Antimicrobial and anticancer activities were also estimated using microbial strains, cancer cell lines and brine shrimp larva. Result: s: GC-Mass-FID analysis of volatile samples showed a total of 74 compounds of which palmitic acid (7.4-33.7%), linoleic acid (6.6-18.6%), heneicosane (1.3-9.6%) and myristic acid (1.4-6.0%) were detected as main volatile components. Moderate to good