BLUE TANSY Vogtia annua

According to the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP, Kew), in the extract read on 21 September 2026, Tanacetum annuum L. (Ettakifi et al. (2023) write “Tanacetum annuum”, without an author) is a name of rank “Species” with the status “Synonym”, in the family Asteraceae, whose accepted name carries the identifier 3111406. In the same extract, Vogtia annua (L.) Oberpr. & Sonboli is a name of rank “Species” with the status “Accepted”, in the family Asteraceae, under the identifier 3111406. According to Ettakifi et al. (2023), the essential oil hydrodistilled from mixed aerial parts harvested at Ben Karrich (Tetouan province, Morocco) in July–September 2020 has a very dark blue colour, and Table 3 of the study gives “Camphor” the value 16.69 and “α-Pinene” the value 12.37 in the “Area (%)” column.

Which name is accepted, and how does the source write it?

The WCVP record of Tanacetum annuum L. carries the identifier 3111407; its status is “Synonym”. The accepted name to which it points, identifier 3111406, is Vogtia annua (L.) Oberpr. & Sonboli. Ettakifi et al. (2023) write the name “Tanacetum annuum”, and “T. annuum” in abbreviated form.

The oil described below comes from a single study, a single site and a single season, distilled from mixed aerial parts.

Where were the aerial parts studied by Ettakifi et al. (2023) harvested?

According to Ettakifi et al. (2023), the aerial parts (stems, leaves and flowers) of the plant were harvested during the flowering period of July–September 2020 at the Biological and Ecological Interest Site (SIBE) of Ben Karrich, in the Tetouan province, in north-western Morocco. The authors locate this harvest site at “35°30′50.6″ N. 5°26′13.9″ W”, at 220 m altitude, in the thermo-Mediterranean vegetation level, a subhumid bioclimatic level with temperate winter, on siliceous substrate. The identification of the plant was based on “the name given by specialists in mass cultivation of this plant” and confirmed in the authors’ laboratory with the determination key “Practical Flora of Morocco: Manual of Determination of Vascular Plants”.

How was the oil of Ettakifi et al. (2023) obtained?

The different aerial parts were dried in the shade at room temperature for 7 days, then crushed, and the fine powder obtained (20 mesh) was stored in a dark glass bottle until the preparation of the essential oil and of the crude extracts. The essential oil (TaEO) was isolated from the aerial parts by hydrodistillation for 3 h in a Clevenger-type apparatus, 100 g of fine powder being immersed in “a 1000 mL flask of distilled water”. The oil obtained was stored at −25 °C in a dark glass vial until use. The preparation of the essential oil and of the crude extracts was performed in triplicate, and the extraction yield was calculated for each sample.

What yield did Ettakifi et al. (2023) report?

According to Ettakifi et al. (2023), the extraction yield of the essential oil was on average 0.7 % (wt/wt) of dry material. Table 1 of the study gives, for the oil of the mixed aerial parts, an extraction yield (%) of 0.7 ± 0.01, the mean ± standard deviation of three replicates.

What colour and odour does the oil have?

According to Ettakifi et al. (2023), the essential oil obtained has a very dark blue colour with a fruity and herbaceous aroma. The source does not say how the colour and the odour were assessed.

How was the oil analysed?

For the analysis, 10 µL of the essential oil were diluted in 90 µL of n-hexane and analysed by gas chromatography (Trace 1300 gas chromatograph) coupled with mass spectrometry (ISQ single quadrupole mass spectrometer). The chromatograph was fitted with a TG5-MS capillary column (60 m × 0.25 mm i.d.; 0.25 µm film thickness) with a non-polar stationary phase (5 % phenyl and 95 % dimethylpolysiloxane). The oven temperature was programmed from 40 °C to 350 °C at 5 °C/min, and the carrier gas was helium at 1.2 mL/min. The components of the oil were identified from Kovats retention indices (RI), relative to a homologous series of alkanes (C8–C20 and C21–C40), and from the spectral data of the NIST databases. Data acquisition and analysis were performed with the software “Xcalibur 2.2 SP1.48” and “NIST MS Search 2.2 Library 2014”. The source does not describe how the area percentages were calculated.

What did Ettakifi et al. (2023) identify in the oil?

According to Ettakifi et al. (2023), the chromatogram of the oil of the mixed aerial parts shows 39 peaks corresponding to 39 identified compounds, which represent 99.92 % of the total volatile compounds of the essential oil. The “Total” line of Table 3 carries the value 99.92 in the “Area (%)” column; it is a total of areas, not an absolute quantification. The authors group the compounds into three classes in Table 3: the “Monoterpenoids” line (compounds 1–24) carries 85.22, the “Sesquiterpenoids” line (compounds 25–37) 14.21 and the “Diterpenoids” line (compounds 38–39) 0.49 in the “Area (%)” column.

What does Table 3 of Ettakifi et al. (2023) give?

For the essential oil hydrodistilled from the mixed aerial parts harvested at Ben Karrich, Table 3 gives the following lines, with each compound named as the table writes it; the “Area (%)” column is given without a stated basis.

Line 10 is given under the table’s name, “o-Cymene”, and line 28 under “Caryophyllene”, without an isomer; no identity with another name is drawn here.

References

• Govaerts R. (ed.), World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — https://sftp.kew.org/pub/data-repositories/WCVP/wcvp.zip
• Ettakifi H., Abbassi K., Maouni S., Erbiai E.H., Rahmouni A., Legssyer M., Saidi R., Lamrani Z., Esteves da Silva J.C.G., Pinto E., Maouni A., « Chemical Characterization and Antifungal Activity of Blue Tansy (Tanacetum annuum) Essential Oil and Crude Extracts against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. albedinis, an Agent Causing Bayoud Disease of Date Palm », Antibiotics 2023;12(9):1451, doi:10.3390/antibiotics12091451 — https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC10526058/fullTextXML