Essential oils of some amazonian zingiberaceas, 3. genera alpinia and rengalmia

Abstract

Alpinia speciosa (Wendl.) Schum. is cultivated around the cities of Manaus and Belém in the Amazon, but it is a foreign plant brought from the Eastern Hemisphere. It is used in the Amazon as a cardiovascular agent and hypotonic (1). Rengalmia floribunda K. Sch. grows wild in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Both species belong to the Zingiberaceae family. Sesquiterpenes (2), diterpenes (3), flavonoids (4,5), pungent agents (6,7), and constituents from essential oils (7,8) of the genus Alpinia, have been reported earlier. As part of an ongoing study of the essential oils of Amazonian plants, we also characterized the volatiles of A. speciosa and R. floribunda using capillary column gc/ms and we now report the presence of additional constituents. © 1984, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.