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. 2017 May 25;22(6):879.
doi: 10.3390/molecules22060879.

Floral Scent Chemistry of Luculia yunnanensis (Rubiaceae), a Species Endemic to China with Sweetly Fragrant Flowers

Yuying Li  1 , Youming Wan  2 , Zhenghai Sun  3 , Taiqiang Li  4 , Xiongfang Liu  5 , Hong Ma  6 , Xiuxian Liu  7 , Rui He  8 , Yan Ma  9 , Zhenghong Li  10
Affiliations

Floral Scent Chemistry of Luculia yunnanensis (Rubiaceae), a Species Endemic to China with Sweetly Fragrant Flowers

Yuying Li et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Luculia plants are famed ornamentals with sweetly fragrant flowers. Luculia yunnanensis Hu is an endemic plant from Yunnan Province, China. Headspace-solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) was used to identify the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of the different flower development stages of L. yunnanensis for the evaluation of floral volatile polymorphism. The results showed that a total of 40 compounds were identified at four different stages. The main aroma-active compounds were 3-carene, α-cubebene, α-copaene, δ-cadinene, and isoledene. Floral scent emission had the tendency to ascend first and descend in succession, reaching its peak level at the initial-flowering stage. The richest diversity of floral volatiles was detected at the full-flowering stage. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that the composition and its relative content of floral scent differed at the whole flower development stage. In comparison with the other two species of Luculia (L. pinceana and L. gratissima), the composition and its relative content of floral scent were also different among the tree species.

Keywords: Luculia; SPME-GC-MS; floral scent; flower development; volatile organic compound.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Different development stages of L. yunnanensis and its habitat. (I) bud stage; (II) initial-flowering stage; (III) full-flowering stage; (IV) end-flower stage; (V) habitat of L. yunnanensis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flowers of L. yunnanensis visited by different insects.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Total ionic chromatogram of scent components emitted from the flowers of L. yunnanensis in different stages. (I) bud stage; (II) initial-flowering stage; (III) full-flowering stage; and (IV) end-flower stage.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Principal component plot (PC1 vs. PC2 plots) for L. yunnanensis at different stages of growth, showing correlations with volatiles (numbers correspond to those in Table 1). (I) bud stage; (II) initial-flowering stage; (III) full-flowering stage; (IV) end-flower stage.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Principal component plots (PC1 vs. PC2 plots) for the volatiles of the full-flowering stage of L. gratissima, the full-flowering stage of L. pinceana, and the different flower stages of L. yunnanensis. (I) bud stage; (II) initial-flowering stage; (III) full-flowering stage; (IV) end-flower stage.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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