The 2011 ASHS Annual Conference

Magnolia officinalis Rehd. et Wils. belongs to Magnoliaceae and its dried bark (root and branch bark) could be used as medicine. A number of studies on the volatile oils of Magnolia officinalis had been reported. But the extraction method used in these studies was exclusively steam distillation given by ‘Chinese Pharmacopie’ (Ed. 2005). There have been no reports on the volatile oils of buds and fruits of Magnolia officinalis. We employed the headspace solid-phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) to extract the bud and fruit volatile oils and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for composition analysis. A total of 31 compounds were identified from the bud extraction. Among them, caryophyllene (25.04%), [2R-(2α.,4a α, 8a β)]-α, α, 4a-trimethyl-8-methylene-decahydro-2-naphthalenemethanol (14.82%) and borneol (11.83%) were main components. A total of 32 compounds were identified from the fruit extraction. The major components were borneol (14.78%), caryophyllene oxide (11.24%), and β-eudesmol (9.76%). There were no significant differences in major volatile components between the buds and fruits, but their contents were different. Both buds and fruits of Magnolia officinalis could be utilized for extracting compounds for medicinal purposes.