Tinkturenpresse

Satureja montana L. - Lamiaceae - winter savory, Spanish savory, white thyme, Berg-Bohnenkraut, Winter-Bohnenkraut

Small semi-woody deciduous shrub, 20-40cm high, native to South Europe; cultivated as spice; flowers white, 7-10mm long.

Used as spice to flavour bean soup, salads, meat and mushrooms and to reduce flatulence. „Winter savory has been purported to have antiseptic, aromatic, carminative, and digestive benefits.“ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Savory

The essential oil produced by steam distillation was found to inhibit the growth of medicinally important pathogens.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergbohnenkraut%C3%B6l

„The maximum activity of savory oil was observed against Escherichia coli, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and against the yeast (Candida albicans).“
[Chemical composition and antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of two Satureja essential oils. Ćavar, Sanja, et al., Food Chemistry, Vol.111 (3), 2008, 648-653]

„The chemical composition of Satureja montana, L. subsp. montana, and S. montana, subsp. variegata, (Host.) P.W. Ball, oils obtained from ten ecologically different locations in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina were investigated by TLC and GC. The oil content varied from 0.66% to 1.47%. Substantial variations in relative concentrations of individual components were also noticed. The main component found in the oils was carvacrol (5.58-84.19%). The thymol content was quite low (0.45-2.84%) in most samples except for two, where it was significantly higher (8.01-13.61%). Cluster analysis and principal component analysis revealed the presence of four distinct chemotypes; however, the results obtained suggested that essential oil composition was not a useful chemotaxonomic character to partition between S. montana, subsp. montana subsp. variegata.“
[Comparison of the essential oil composition of two subspecies of Satureja montana. Kustrak, Danica, et al. Journal of Essential Oil Research Vol.8 (1), 1996, 7-13]

„Twenty-one compounds were identified in the essential oil without fractionation, representing 97.4% of the total oil. The major compound was phenolic monoterpene thymol (45.2%). Other important compounds were monoterpenic hydrocarbons p-cymene (6.4%) and γ-terpinene (5.9%) and oxygen-containing compounds carvacrol methyl ether (5.8%), thymol methyl ether (5.1%), carvacrol (5.3%), geraniol (5.0%) and borneol (3.9%).“
[Chemical composition and in vitro evaluation of antioxidant effect of free volatile compounds from Satureja montana L. Radonic, Ani, and Mladen Milos. Free radical research, Vol.37 (6), 2003, 673-679]

„The major constituents of essential oils obtained from the plant material of S. montana, collected from two different localities, were thymol (31.7%), and geraniol (22.3%), respectively… Generally, S. montana essential oils were characterized by high percentages of the monoterpene phenols, such as thymol and carvacrol. However, literature review showed variation between chemical compositions, depending of location and stages of development. S. montana from the central part of the Balkan Peninsula (Slavkovska et al., 2001) is mostly linalool chemotype, with high content of p-cymene. The oxygen-containing phenolic monoterpenes, carvacrol and thymol, are main constituents in Croatian winter savory (Bezic ́ et al., 2005; Mastelic ́ & Jerkovic ́, 2003; Milos, Radonic, Bezic, & Dunkic, 2001; Radonic & Milos, 2003; Skocˇibušic ́& Bezic ́, 2003, 2004), but S. montana, from Serbia and Montenegro, contains thymol and p-cymene as major components of its essential oil (Bezbradica et al., 2005). The high percentages of the phenols thymol and carvacrol in oil of our S. montana from Trebinje are, as expected, in agreement with results published earlier, while volatile constituents of S. montana from Konjic constitute the first report on savory essential oil of the geraniol chemotype.“
[Chemical composition and antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of two Satureja essential oils. Ćavar, Sanja, et al., Food Chemistry, Vol.111 (3), 2008, 648-653]

Satureja montana as Satureia durior, Blackwell,E., Herbarium Blackwellianum, vol.4 t.318 (1760)
http://plantgenera.org/taxa.php?id_taxon=5169

Satureja montana, Alpengarten Belvedere Wien
© Rolf Marschner (2015), www.botanische-spaziergaenge.at