The common oregano belongs to the mint family (Lamiaceae). It is a herbaceous perennial mainly known as an aromatic herb, however it is also a medicinal plant. In our graduation thesis we wanted to use 5 populations of O. vulgare ssp. vulgare, brought from different natural habitats in Slovenia and propagated at two locations of the Laboratory Field of the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana (at the BF Laboratory Field within the Plantation of the Public Service of the Plant Gene Bank (PSPGB) and at the BF Laboratory Field outside the PSPGB plantation) and a sample of 1 population of O. vulgare ssp. hirtum, saved from 2016, to determine the content of essentiala oil (EO) using the water distillation method and to analyze their composition using the gas chromatography (GC) method. We measured the volume of EO for each of the populations and expressed it in ml/kg of plant drug. Average EO contents measured in ml ranged between 0,038 ml (population M1) and 0,2 ml (population M1BT). Population M1 had the lowest average EO content expressed in ml/kg (1,27 ml/kg), while sample 9/1 saved from 2016 had the highest (15,00 ml/kg). The analysis of the composition of EO and aromatic water (AV) in most populations of the subspecies O. vulgare ssp. vulgare showed a combination of cymyl and sabinyl chemotype with the presence of sesquiterpenes, while Greek oregano (O. vulgare ssp. hirtum) had a cymyl chemotype, as the EO contained mainly carvacrol (61.8 %). Carvacrol also appeared in a smaller percentage in EO of population M4 (I) (6.07 %), in AV of population M4 (II) (15.43 %), in EO of population M4 (II) (3.76 %), and in EO population M1 (1 %). In the analyzed samples, thymol was possibly present only in the aromatic water of population 9/1.
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