Essential oil variation in wild-growing populations of Artemisia herba-alba Asso collected from Morocco: Chemical composition and multivariate analysis

The essential oils of nine Artemisia herba-alba Asso (AHA) samples growing in different areas of Morocco were investigated by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry detector (GC/MS). Their qualitative and semi-quantitative analysis confirmed the high degree of variability in chemical composition between specimens. Chemical variability in essential oil composition was estimated using hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA). The results of these two multivariate statistical analysis methods led to the classification of the nine AHA populations into three main groups which represents the following chemotypes: camphor (Ain Aghbal, Tizi Lafaka, Lakhtatba, Talezzarte), α-thujone (Bni Boufrah, Boudnib), davanone (Es- Samara), camphor/davanone (Ighrem) and α-thujone /camphor (Tata).