essential oil composition of elaeagnus angustifolia and elaeagnus orientalis from sistan and baluchestan, iran

background & aim: elaeagnus angustifolia and elaeagnus orientalis have a lot of medical utilization. in folk medicine, the fruit and flower of these plants are used as a tonic and antipyretic agent. the aim of the present study was to chemical analysis of volatile constituents of e. angustifolia and e. orientalis flowers.  experimental: the essential oils of e. angustifolia and e. orientalis flowers collected from zahedan in sistan and baluchestan province were obtained by hydro-distillation. chemical composition of oils were determined by gc/ms.  results & discussion: 12 compounds representing 100% were identified in the essential oil of e. angustifolia flowers in which ethyl cinnamate (73.24%(, cyclohexanecarboxylic acid, ethenyl ester (6.94%(, isobutyl cinnamate (4.74%), palmitic acid (4.39%), buthyl cinnamate (2.38%), ethanol (2.24%) and methyl 9,9- dideutero- octadecanoate (2.05%( were the major constituents. in the essential oil of e. orientalis flowers twelve constituents representing 100% were identified in which ethyl cinnamate (84.80 %(, ethanol (7.86%), tetra hydrogeranyl acetone (2.18%) and phenantrenol (1.26%) were the major ones. the results showed that there are some differences and similarities between the oil compositions of elaeagnus species growing in the same weather conditions. although the main component of the essential oils of elaeagnusspecies was ethyl cinnamate, but its relative content was higher in the oil of e. orientalis. the percentage of ethanol in the oil of elaeagnusspecies also was less than 10%. moreover, although the isobutyl cinnamate, buthyl cinnamate and methyl 9, 9- dideutero- octadecanoate compounds were the main component of the essential oil of e. angustifolia flowers, but these compounds were not identified in the essential oil of e. orientalis. industrial and practical recommendations: the results of the present study showed that the e. angustifolia and e. orientalis flower oils can be utilized as cheap commercially sources to isolation ethyl cinnamate. in addition, extraction of the identified components can be useful for medicinal uses.