Abstract
Oil extracted from the wild plant of Cistanche phelypaea was analyzed for its fatty acid, sterol, hydrocarbon and tocopherol contents. Total lipids (TL) content was 10 g/kg (on dry weight basis). The majority of fatty acids were of the unsaturated type (50.4 % of total fatty acids), while the saturated (mainly palmitic acid) were about 43.2 % of the total fatty acids. Oleic acid was the dominating fatty acid followed by palmitic and linoleic acids. High amounts of sterols were found in the oil with the main component beta-sitosterol. Other phytosterols (e.g. stigmasterol, a dagger(7)-avenasterol and a dagger(5)-avenasterol) were present at approximately equal amounts (6-9 % of total sterols). The main identified hydrocarbon compounds were C-21, C-26 and C-32 constituting about 61.2 % of total hydrocarbons. Small amounts of C-12, C-18 and C-22, however, were also detected. Tocopherol levels were high in the oil (3.36 g/kg oil), wherein beta-tocopherol was the main component followed by alpha-isomer. Both tocopherol components comprised more than 87 % of total vitamin E content in the oil. Furthermore, gamma- and delta-tocopherols were detected in small amounts in the oil accounting for 14-16 % of the total vitamin E content. Information provided by the present work will be of importance for food applications and chemotaxonomy of Cistanche phelypaea.