Isolation, Identification and Quantification of Essential Oils in Cyprus and Anatolia Thyme

In this study our aim was to extract, identify and quantify the essential oils in locally obtained thyme samples grown in Cyprus and Anatolia. The samples comprised three Cypriot specimens, one of which grew wild and two of which were grown commercially; and two commercially grown Anatolian samples. All the specimens were obtained as the dry herb. The essential oils from these were isolated by hydrodistillation using a Clevenger type Apparatus. Analyses were carried out by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. In the extracts, up to 45 different constituents could be identified which accounted for about 95% of the total essential oils extracted. The major constituents in all the samples were found to be carvacrol (about 90 % of the total) and p-cymene (around 3 %). We can therefore predict the chemotype of our five samples as carvacrol but exactly which species they are requires further botanical identification. The higher yields of essential oils were obtained from the Cyprus specimens, the highest being from the wild Cyprus thyme. Keywords: Carvacrol, Clevenger-type Apparatus, essential oils, Gas Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry, Thyme.