Pimpinella anisum seeds essential oil from Lesvos island: Effect of hydrodistillation time, comparison of its aromatic profile with other samples of the Greek market. Safe use

The essential oil of Pimpinella anisum L. (Apiaceae) seeds from Lesvos Island (Greece), famous as flavor for the production of the aperitif “ouzo”, has been analyzed by GC-MS for the first time. Additionally, three samples of the Greek market originated from North and Central Greece (Thessaly, Viotia) and Turkey, were also analyzed and all of them were compared to the quality limits given in European Pharmacopoeia for medicinal purposes. The effect of hydrodistillation time found to be very important as the results showed differentiations of the oil yield and the chemical content. The most abundant identified metabolites were trans-anethole, γ-himachalene, estragole and pseudoisoeugenyl 2-methylbutyrate. It is noteworthy, that Lesvos anise oil showed the best quality according to European Pharmacopoeia's standards, while it had the highest yield and the richest chemical composition (28 identified compounds) among all studied samples, contributing to the well known quality of “ouzo” from Plomari. Furthermore, two major secondary metabolites from Lesvos' anise oil: trans-anethole and a mixture of himachalenes have been isolated and structurally determined. Moreover, the safe use of anise oil is discussed due to potential toxic effects of estragole.