Title
Chemical composition of essential oils and secretory hairs of Thymus dacicus Borbás related to harvesting time
Authors
IRINA BOZ ANDREI LOBIUC and CORNELIU TANASE

Received We dedicate this work to Academician Cristofor I. Simionescu, a great scientist, who contributed to the development of chemical engineering in Romania and opened up new research directions
Published Volume 51 Issue 9-10 September-December
Keywords thyme, phenophases, hair structure, terpenoids

Abstract
Thyme (Thymus spp.), a famous herb from the Lamiaceae family, is a medicinal and aromatic plant with important bio economical, commercial and pharmaceutical potential. Among the species of this genus, Thymus dacicus is less studied in terms of both structure and chemical composition of secondary metabolites. In the present work, the authors investigated the effect of harvesting time on the composition of essential oils and on glandular hairs of Thymus dacicus. For this purpose, the vegetal material was collected in 3 different phenophases (vegetative, anthesis and fruiting), during 2 consecutive years, from Novaci, Gorj County, Romania. Regarding the chemical composition of essential oil, major qualitative and quantitative differences, depending on phenophase and harvest year, have been found. Following the studies conducted, we have found that the density of hairs tends to increase from spring to autumn, in both sides of the leaf lamina, with the highest values in the anthesis phase.