Pyrolysis‐gas chromatography/mass spectrometry used as a microanalytical technique for the characterization of Origanum heracleoticum from Calabria, southern Italy

Pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (PY-GC/MS) was used as a microanalytical technique for the simultaneous analysis of different classes of compounds in different parts of Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum (Link) Ietswaart (syn. Origanum heracleoticum) plants growing wild in Calabria, southern Italy. White flower and pink flower Origanum plant were characterized. Corollas, calices, apical and basal leaves, and bracts, were analyzed by PY-GC/MS at 250 °C and 800 °C for 10 seconds. Terpenic and sesquiterpenic hydrocarbons from the essential oil fraction, and simple phenolics tentatively ascribed to moieties of flavonoids and glucosides, were determined. Aliquots in the mg-range of plant material were assayed as such with no extraction or use of different analytical techniques suited to the different chemical classes under investigation. Differences in the essential oil composition of different parts of the plants were shown. White flower and pink flower origanum essential oil compositions and amounts were compared.