Essential-oil composition of Daucus carota ssp. major (Pastinocello Carrot) and nine different commercial varieties of Daucus carota ssp. sativus fruits.

The chemical composition of the essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from the pastinocello carrot, Daucus carota ssp. major (Vis.) Arcang. (flowers and achenes), and from nine different commercial varieties of D. carota L. ssp. sativus (achenes) was investigated by GC/MS analyses. Selective breeding over centuries of a naturally occurring subspecies of the wild carrot, D. carota L. ssp. sativus, has produced the common garden vegetable with reduced bitterness, increased sweetness, and minimized woody core. On the other hand, the cultivation of the pastinocello carrot has been abandoned, even if, recently, there has been renewed interest in the development of this species, which risks genetic erosion. The cultivated carrot (D. carota ssp. sativus) and the pastinocello carrot (D. carota ssp. major) were classified as different subspecies of the same species. This close relationship between the two subspecies urged us to compare the chemical composition of their essential oils, to evaluate the differences. The main essential-oil constituents isolated from the pastinocello fruits were geranyl acetate (34.2%), α-pinene (12.9%), geraniol (6.9%), myrcene (4.7%), epi-α-bisabolol (4.5%), sabinene (3.3%), and limonene (3.0%). The fruit essential oils of the nine commercial varieties of D. carota ssp. sativus were very different from that of pastinocello, as also confirmed by multivariate statistical analyses.