Ethnopharmacology and chemotaxonomy of essential oil yielding Australian plants

Abstract

The first of three main focal points of this study was to uncover commercially viable natural products, particularly essential oils, complemented with information related to cultivar requirements and biological activity. Emphasis was subsequently placed on 'Eremophila longifolia', which produced a range of geographically specific chemotypes. To investigate potential factors related to this variability a ploidy analysis was performed, which revealed that the high yielding isomenthone diploid chemotype of 'E. longifolia' from western New South Wales is genetically different from all other chemotypes in Australia, which are normally tetraploid, except of course the diploid phenylpropanoid chemotype occupying a small geographic range on the north-west coast of Western Australia. With moderate to high antimicrobial activity of essential oils the isomenthone chemotype is therefore judged to be the best choice for cultivation.