[Quantitative evaluation and antimicrobial activity of essential oil Artemisia herba-alba of asso. growing in Al-Nabek region-Syria]

ABSTRACT

The essential oils of fresh flowers of Artemisia herba-a/ba Asso. from wild type and cultivated plants found on eastern mountain, Al nabek region were extracted. Evaluation of oil outcome revealed that distillation of fresh flower at flowering stage produced high rates [1.84 ml/100 g in wild type and 1.75 ml/100 g in cultivated plants]. It was shown that drying lead to a loss of 63% of oil quantity. The lowest percentage of oil was obtained from young growth shoots and winter leaves, appearing at the beginning of the growth of A. herba-alba wild type, where oil rate was 0.16 ml/100 g of fresh plant. The antimicrobial activity of A. herba-alba essential oil was evaluated against four bacterial strains using the broth dilution method to determine the MIC of broth wild type and cultivated plant oils. The MICs were in the range 2.4-2.6 micro l/ml 2.25-2.44 mg/ml. The essential oil exhibited a strong growth inhibitory activity, on both gram positive and gram negative strains, but showed no effect on Pseudomonas aeruginosa even at the highest concentration of oil applied