Abstract

French Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.) is a perennial herb in the Asteraceae family that is widely cultivated throughout the world. The herbaceous parts of this plant use as spices, seasonings, flavorings and vegetables. Flowering stems were collected. Then air-dried flowering stems of the plant were submitted to hydrodistillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus according to the method recommendation in British Pharmacopoeia. The essential oil was analyzed by combination of GC-FID and GC-MS. Nineteen compounds were identified, which represented about 99.9% of the total detected constituents. The main constituents of the essential oil were Estragole (80%), Spathulenol (4.58%), Methyleugenol (2.87%), Trans-anethole (1.66%), Caryophyllene oxide (1.54%) and Ledene oxide (1.04%) [1-3].