β-Caryophyllene: A Single Volatile Component of -Hexane Extract of Resin.

The pure Soqotri resin of Balf.f. (Dracaenaceae) has no volatile smell due to its low content of volatile constituents. Although it is insoluble in -Hexane, we found that the resin, when suspended in -Hexane within five days at 5 °C, led to the extraction of a small portion of a single volatile liquid constituent, which was identified by GC-MS as sesquiterpene β-caryophyllene. This method of extracting the volatile constituents using hexane under cooling is very suitable for resins of the species because these resins usually contain very few volatile terpenes and/or non-terpenes, and they may contain only one volatile terpene per resin as this study result. β-Caryophyllene was identified and separated for the first time from the Soqotri standard resin of . Therefore, β-caryophyllene, as a new chemical property, can support to evaluate the purity of the Soqotri resin. Moreover, a big mass of resin can yield concentrated β-caryophyllene as a liquid extract for further pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications.