Essential oil and antimicrobial activity of wild and cultivated Origanum vulgare L. subsp hirtum (Link) letswaart from the Marmara region, Turkey

The family Lamiaceae is represented by 45 genera, 546 species and 730 taxa in Turkey. The genus Origanum is represented in Turkey by 22 species; the ratio of endemism in the genus is 63%. Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum collected from different localities in Marmara region and their cultivated forms provided by the Ataturk Central Horticultural Research Institute Yalova/Turkey were subjected to hydrodistillation to yield essential oils which were subsequently analysed by GC and GC-MS. The main constituents of the oils were identified and antimicrobial bioassays were applied. The analyses showed that wild and cultivated Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum oils contained carvacroll (82.9-7.5% and 85.4-5.3%, respectively) and thymol (60.1-0.3% and 68.0-0.3%, respectively) as the main components. The essential oils showed strong antimicrobial activity against all the microorganisms tested. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.