Essential oil composition of Citrus meyerii Y. Tan. and Citrus medica L. cv. Diamante and their lemon hybrids

In this paper we report the volatile fraction composition of Citrus meyerii Y. Tan. and Citrus medica L. cv. Diamante and two new lemon hybrids obtained by cross-breeding them with the tetraploid Citrus limon Burm. cv. Cavone. Both parent and hybrid oils were laboratory-extracted from the peel fruits and analyzed by HRGC-MS and HRGC-FID. Sixty-three components were fully characterized by mass spectra, linear retention indices, and injection of standards. The average composition as single components for all the oils analyzed is reported. Moreover, the data obtained were statistically analyzed. Since limonene is by far the main component of all the essential oils examined, analysis of variance and multivariate analysis gave interesting information on the similarities and differences between the oils analyzed. The new hybrid oils analyzed have potential commercial value because they could be an acceptable alternative to the valuable lemon oil.