Myristica fragrans Houtt. (nutmeg): seed oil, ISO 3215

What is nutmeg, botanically?

According to the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP, Kew), in the extract read on 28/10/2026, Myristica fragrans Houtt. is a name of rank “Species” with the status “Accepted”, placed in the family Myristicaceae.

According to the Plants of the World Online (POWO, Kew) entry for the taxon “Myristica fragrans Houtt.”, the native range of the species is “Maluku (Banda Islands)”. The same entry describes Myristica fragrans as “a tree” that grows “primarily in the wet tropical biome”.

How was the seed oil studied by Ibrahim et al. (2020) obtained?

According to Ibrahim et al. (2020), the seed used in their study, described as “certified bulk nutmeg seed”, originated from Indonesia and was purchased. The experiment was conducted at Oregon State University (Corvallis, Oregon), and the essential oil analyses at the USDA-ARS Natural Product Utilization Research Unit of the University of Mississippi (Oxford, Mississippi). The seed oil of Myristica fragrans was extracted by hydrodistillation of what the authors write “whole seed”, in 2-L hydrodistillation units. In the laboratory preparation they describe, one hundred grams of nutmeg seeds were quartered by hand with a knife, then blended in 500 mL of water for 1 min at high speed. The mix was transferred into the 2 L hydrodistillation flask, to which a further 500 mL of water, used to rinse the sides of the blender, was also added. Alongside fractions collected over distillation timeframes, nutmeg essential oil was also collected through a “non-stop 240 min distillation”. This page reports only the oil of that non-stop distillation. All distillation timeframes (“All DT”) were performed in 3 replicates; the oils were collected in glass vials, separated from the water, weighed on an analytical scale and kept in a freezer until the gas chromatography analyses “could be performed”. The authors express the essential oil yield (content) as grams of oil per 100 g of nutmeg seeds.

How did Ibrahim et al. (2020) analyse the oil?

According to Ibrahim et al. (2020), 50 μL of oil from each sample were transferred by micropipette into a 10 mL volumetric flask and brought to volume with CHCl3; a 1 mL aliquot of each diluted sample was placed in a GC vial for analysis. The oils were analysed by GC–MS–FID on a DB-5 column (30 m × 0.25 mm, film thickness 0.25 µm): injector at 240 °C; column from 60 to 240 °C at 3 °C/min, held at 240 °C for 5 min; helium carrier gas; MS mass range from 50 to 550 m/z; filament delay of 3.5 min; FID at 300 °C; post-column splitting sent 50% of the outlet flow to the FID and 50% to MS detection. Compounds were identified by retention index and “Kovat” index analysis, by direct comparison of mass spectra and retention times with authentic standards, and/or by comparison of mass spectra with those of the NIST mass spectra database. Commercial standards were purchased for all the constituents analysed but one, α-thujene. Commercial standards of α-pinene, camphene, sabinene, β-pinene, α-phellandrene, 3-carene, α-terpinene, p-cymene, limonene, γ-terpinene, terpinolene, terpinen-4-ol, safrole and myristicin, and of myrcene, were obtained, injected, compared with the retention times and mass spectra of the oil, and used for identification. Compounds were quantified by FID area percentage calculations.

Which constituents did Ibrahim et al. (2020) measure in the non-stop distilled oil?

The table below gives, for the oil of the non-stop distillation (row “0–240 Control” of Tables 1 to 3 of the study), the mean concentration (%) of each constituent, as an FID area percentage, with the names as the tables write them. α-Thujene is the one constituent for which no commercial standard was purchased.

How was the seed oil studied by Matulyte et al. (2019) obtained?

According to Matulyte et al. (2019), the dried seeds of Myristica fragrans (“nutmeg”; the source writes the name without its author) came from Grenada. They were identified by Jurga Bernatoniene (Medical Academy, “Lithuania University of Health Sciences”, Kaunas, Lithuania), and a voucher specimen (I 18922) was deposited at the Herbarium of the Department of Drug Technology and Social Pharmacy, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. The seeds of this lot were brown-beige, with a characteristic odour and a strong, bitter and spicy flavour. The dried seeds were ground into a powder (particles smaller than 0.5 mm) with a laboratory mill, and the samples were kept in an airtight container, in the dark, at ambient temperature. For hydrodistillation, the samples were “prepared from nutmeg seeds and purified with water”: 15 g of solid material and 300 mL of water, in a Clevenger-type apparatus (“European pharmacopoeia”), for 4 h. A colourless essential oil with a specific odour was obtained from this sample; it was collected with the water in an airtight bottle and stored in a refrigerator at 4 °C until needed. In Table 1 of the study (“Extraction conditions used for each experiment.”), the sample HD1, method “Hydrodistillation”, carries a temperature of 100 °C, a “Time (h)” of 4, the solvent “purified water”, a solvent : nutmeg ratio of 20:1, and “-” for the magnesium aluminometasilicate : nutmeg ratio. The authors write that the essential oil yield obtained by hydrodistillation with water was 5.25 %.

How did Matulyte et al. (2019) analyse the oil?

According to Matulyte et al. (2019), for the GC-MS analysis, twenty microlitres of sample (extract or essential oil) were diluted to 1 mL with hexane. The column was a 30 m × 0.25 mm i.d. RTX-5MS column, with a film thickness written “0.25 µL film thickness”; the helium carrier gas flow rate was 1.23 mL/min. The oven was held at 40 °C for 2 min after injection, then programmed at 3 °C/min to 210 °C and held there for 10 min; the split ratio was 1:10, and the mass detector electron ionization was 70 eV. Volatile compounds were identified by a mass spectra library search (NIST 14) and by comparison with mass spectral data from the literature. Data are presented as mean ± SEM, and the statistical analysis used Student’s t-test, results being significant when p < 0.05. The notes of Table 2 state: “All data are given with an 0.05 accuracy.”; they also state that “HD” stands for hydrodistillation.

Which compounds does Table 2 of Matulyte et al. (2019) list for the HD1 oil?

The rows below are those of Table 2 of the study (“Chemical composition of nutmeg extracts and essential oils.”), column “HD e 1 (%)” only, the oil of hydrodistillation with water, in the table’s order, with the compound names as the table writes them. The table does not define the sign “-”, which is reproduced as written. Footnote markers of the table are not reproduced.

Which ISO standard covers nutmeg oil, Indonesian type?

According to the ISO catalogue page (web archive copy of 08/11/2024), the standard ISO 3215:1998 carries the title “Oil of nutmeg, Indonesian type (Myristica fragrans Houtt.)”. The same copy states that this publication “was last reviewed and confirmed in 2020”, and gives the status “Published”, the publication date 1998-12, the stage “International Standard confirmed” (90.93) and the edition 2. Its abstract, in the same copy, states that ISO 3215:1998 “specifies certain characteristics of the oil of nutmeg, Indonesian type (Myristica fragrans Houtt.), in order to facilitate assessment of its quality”. In the ISO catalogue, ICS class 71.100.60 (web archive copy of 19/03/2026), the entry ISO 3215:1974 carries the mention “[Withdrawn]”, the title “Oils of nutmeg”, the stage 95.99 and the committee ISO/TC 54. In the same copy, the entry ISO 3215:1998 carries the title “Oil of nutmeg, Indonesian type (Myristica fragrans Houtt.)” and the stage 90.93. In the same copy, the entry ISO 7355:1985 carries the mention “[Withdrawn]”, the title “Oils of sassafras and nutmeg — Determination of safrole and cis- and trans-isosafrole content — Gas chromatographic method on packed columns”, the stage 95.99 and the committee ISO/TC 54.

References

• Govaerts R. (ed.), World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — https://sftp.kew.org/pub/data-repositories/WCVP/wcvp.zip
• Ibrahim M.A., Cantrell C.L., Jeliazkova E.A., Astatkie T., Zheljazkov V.D., « Utilization of Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) Seed Hydrodistillation Time to Produce Essential Oil Fractions with Varied Compositions and Pharmacological Effects », Molecules 2020;25(3):565, doi:10.3390/molecules25030565 — https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pmc&id=7037852
• Matulyte I., Marksa M., Ivanauskas L., Kalvėnienė Z., Lazauskas R., Bernatoniene J., « GC-MS Analysis of the Composition of the Extracts and Essential Oil from Myristica fragrans Seeds Using Magnesium Aluminometasilicate as Excipient », Molecules 2019;24(6):1062, doi:10.3390/molecules24061062 — https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pmc&id=6471610
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO), catalogue record « ISO 3215:1998 — Oil of nutmeg, Indonesian type (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) », edition 2, 1998-12, archived copy of 08/11/2024 (Internet Archive) — https://web.archive.org/web/20241108210105id_/https://www.iso.org/standard/8418.html
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO), online catalogue, ICS 71.100.60 « Essential oils », archived copy of 19/03/2026 (Internet Archive) — https://web.archive.org/web/20260319152944id_/https://www.iso.org/ics/71.100.60/x/
• Plants of the World Online (POWO), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, taxon page « Myristica fragrans Houtt. », archived copy of 04/08/2026 (Internet Archive) — https://web.archive.org/web/20260804193007id_/https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:586076-1