Composition of Achillea distans Willd. subsp. distans root essential oil.

Gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass specteometry analyses of root volatiles of Achillea distans Willd. subsp. distans, collected from wild populations in Serbia, enabled the identification of 185 constituents, accounting for 93.6% of the total oil. Main constituents of the oil were tau-cadinol (17.6%), alismol (14.1%), alpha-cadinol (9.1%) and caryophyllene oxide (5.0%). The root oil was additionally characterised by the presence of five different amides containing the olefinic C(10) acid moieties. This is the first report on A. distans subsp. distans root volatiles and on the occurrence of piperidides and piperideides as essential oil constituents.