Analysis of Origanum vulgare volatiles by direct thermal desorption coupled to gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Volatile components of samples of a population of Spanish Origanum vulgare have been analyzed by direct thermal desorption coupled to GC–MS. The method is fast and reliable and requires a low amount of sample, allowing analysis of leaves and flowers from a single individual plant. Volatile yield is highly variable among individual plants and concentration also presents a high variation for most Origanum volatile compounds, linalool being the main component in most samples. Statistical analyses are applied in order to find patterns in composition data.