Climatic factors as quality determinant of essential oils and phenolics in Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Lamiales Lamiaceae) collected from three geographic areas in Algeria

The present work was aimed to evaluate the effect of the climatic factors on quality and quantity of essential oils and phenolic compounds of the aerial parts of Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Lamiales Lamiaceae) collected from three different geographic origins in Algeria (humid, semi arid, and arid).Gas-Chromatography/Mass-Spectroscopy analysis of essential oils revealed important disparities, both quantitatively and qualitatively.α-pinene and camphor as major components were found to range from 16.78 to 40.95% and from 11.24 to 36.72%, respectively.The assessment of total phenolics in water and ethyl acetate extracts of the three samples displayed a content ranging from 58.26 to 114.10 mg GAE (gallic acid equivalent)/g of water extracts and from 73.75 to 167.91 mg GAE/g of ethyl acetate extracts.The flavonoids content was found to vary from 14.63 to 28.86 mg QE (quercetin equivalent)/g of water extracts and from 66.2 to 93.1 mg QE/g of ethyl acetate extracts.Moreover, the HPLC analysis of phenolics revealed the presence of many compounds amongst which Hesperidin and Rosmarinic acid have relatively high contents in both extracts and in the three sites.