Chemical composition and fungicidal activity of the essential oil of Laserpitium garganicum from Italy

Laserpitium garganicum subsp. garganicum (Ten.) Bertol.(= Laserpitium siler L. subsp. garganicum (Ten.) Arcangeli) is a perennial herb belonging to the Apiaceae family. The distribution is limited to the southern area of the Balkan peninsula and Italy [1]. In Italy this plant is found in the central Apennines, Sicily and Sardinia [2]. This plant is described as a subspecies of L. siler or a species of Laserpitium in the Flora Europaea [1] and the Flora d’Italia [2] respectively. A few studies have reported the biologically active components isolated from L. siler, mainly sesquiterpene lactones [3–8], and one refers to sesquiterpene lactones from the roots of L. garganicum [9]. The essential oil composition of L. siler was also reported [10–13], but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the GC/MS determination of the essential oil composition of the L. garganicum subsp. garganicum (Ten.) Bertol. Since the biological activity of this plant has not been studied, we focused our investigation on the antifungal activities of this essential oil against some phytopathogens and opportunistic human fungi. Fifty-six compounds were identified in L. garganicum essential oil, representing 92.3% of the total oil [14–19]. Table 1 shows the list of components identified and their percentages and retention indices. Compounds are listed in order of their elution from an HP-5. The most abundant compounds were myrcene (15.7%), β-phellandrene (14.4%), sabinene (9.7%), and γ-muurolene (7.8%).