Composition and antibacterial activities of volatile oil of Millingtonia hortensis flowers from Sultanate of Oman

Central Instrumentation Laboratory, College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences,

Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 34, P.C. 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

E-mail : jamal@squ.edu.om

Department of Biology, College of Science, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 36, P.C. 123, Muscat,

Sultanate of Oman

E-mail : apnsiva@squ.edu.om

Department of Research, Saveetha University, Thandalam, Chennai-602 105, India

E-mail : drsuku3@gmail.com

Manuscript received online 02 March 2016, accepted 12 February 2017

Millingtonia hortensis commonly known as Tree Jasmine or Indian Cork Tree, is indigenous to Burma and the Malay Archipelago and cultivated as an ornamental plant in some countries. The flowers, root and bark are used medicinally. In this study, the volatile oil (VO) obtained by the hydro-distillation of the flowers of the plant grown in Sultanate of Oman, has been analyzed by GC-MS. A total of 32 compounds have been identified that formed major part (97.7%) of the volatile oil. The main components of VO were L-linalool (29.16%), α-farnesene (11.80%), nerolidol (11.34%), pentacosane (9.69%), 1-octen-3-ol (7.62%), (e)-isoeugenol (4.87%), α-terpineol (3.82%), linalool oxide (3.68%), heptacosane (3.03%) and tricosane (2.63%). The volatile oil has been tested for its antimicrobial activity against eleven bacteria wherein it exhibited significant inhibition against seven, moderate against two and no response against two strains. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) has also been determined for the volatile oil.