Chemical Composition of Althaea damascena Essential Oil and Antifungal Action organic extracts Against Some Storage Fungi

Abstract

These investigations carried out in 2019-2020, at Department of Plant Protection- Damascus University, in Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University. In the present work, chemical composition of essential oil of Khatmi  (Althaea damascene: Malvaceae) from garden of Rayf Damascus –Syria. was determined by Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry GC/MS. Khatmi mixture of dried leaves and flowers at flowering stage oil was isolated by hydrodistillation..The 13 components were identified in A. damascene  oil and the main component as follow; Palmitoleic acid (13.24%), Linoleic acid (21.53%), Naphthalene (11.35%), and (8.31%).

The antifungal action of Ethanol, Petroleum ether and Hexane extracts of leaves and flowers Althaea damascena, in inhibiting mycelium growth of fungi: Aspergillus niger, A. flavus , Botrytis cinerea and Fusarium solani on PDA in laboratory.

The results showed that Ethanol, Petroleum ether and Hexane extracts of leaves and flowers Khatmi gave significant inhibition to growth fungi compared with the control. Ethanol extract of leaves Khatmi gave the superior inhibition effect to the Botrytis cinerea and Aspergillus niger fungi where gave 100% inhibition at the 1500 ppm.

Followed by the ethanol extract of flowers which gave 100% inhibition to two fungi at the concentration 1750 ppm. However, that Petroleum ether extracts of studied leaves and flowers Khatmi gave the lower effect inhibition to the tested fungus. In the other hand, Hexane extracts of leaves  and flowers gave midtrial inhibition to the tested fungi on PDA.

However, the ethanol and Hexane extracts of leaves and flowers Althaea damascena, could be used to control the storage fungi .