Pittosporum tobira (Thunb.) W.T. Aiton - syn. Euonymus tobira Thunb. - Pittosporaceae
Japanese pittosporum, Japanese mock orange, Chinesischer Klebsame, Pechsame
Evergreen shrub or small tree, up to 6m tall, native to China and Japan, naturalized and cultivated elsewhere; Leaves clustered at branchlet apex, obovate-lanceolate, 4-9 × 1.5-4 cm, leathery, dark green and shiny adaxially; flowers fragrant, sepals lanceolate, 3-4 mm, petals white turning yellow, oblanceolate, 1-1.2 cm; capsule globose, ca. 1.2cm in diam.; seeds numerous, red.
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200010484
In late spring, the small white flowers emit a scent with orange-blossom character (or mock-orange, name!). Major constituents of the vacuum headspace concentrate from the flowers were n-nonane (42%), benzyl alcohol (13.4%), myrcene (10%), n-undecane (7.5%), (E)-ocimene (6.3%), α-pinene (4.4%), linalool (3.3%), 2-aminobenzaldehyde (1.6%), benzyl acetate (1.2%), and indole (1%).
[Joulain, D. „Study of the fragrance given off by certain springtime flowers.“ Progress in essential oil research (1986): 57-67]
Main volatile components of the flower oil from P. tobira grown in Iran and obtained through hydrodistillation, were α-pinene (38.6%), n-nonane (11.8%), (E)-nerolidol (9.0%), (E)-β-ocimene (7.7%), myrcene (6.2%), n-undecane (4.6%), and β-pinene (4.2%).
[Volatile constituents of the flower and fruit oils of Pittosporum tobira (Thunb.) Ait. grown in Iran., Nickavara, B., Amin, G., Yosefi, M., Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C, 59(3-4), 2004, 174-176]
The main constituents of a hydrodistilled oil from the flowers of Pittosporum tobira cultivated in Greece were nonane (14.3%), undecane (8.6%), α-pinene (7.3%), myrcene (6.1%), (E)-nerolidol (4.9%), (E)-β-ocimene (4.4%) and viridiflorol (4.3%).
[Volatile constituents of Pittosporum tobira (Thunb.) Aiton fil cultivated in Greece., Loukis, A., Hatziioannou, C., Journal of Essential Oil Research, 17(2), 2005, 186-187]
Edwards S.T., Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. 34: t. 1396 (1811)
http://plantgenera.org/species.php?id_species=803024
Pittosporum tobira, Wien, Palmenhaus Schönbrunn
© Rolf Marschner (2009),
www.botanische-spaziergaenge.at