Some biochemical compounds in male and female plants of Ephedra intermedia Schrenket.

Ephedra intermedia is a dioecious plant of the Ephedraceae family whose male and female plants are quite similar in shape, but their biochemical differences are not known. The subject was the TLC and GC-MS study of fatty acids, phenols, essential oils, and alkaloids in male and female shoots of E. intermedia. Male and female shoots were collected from Markazi province in Iran, in spring. Alcoholic extract was obtained by mixing shoot powder with ethanol at 60 ° C. Phenols, fatty acids, and essential oil were separated from the alcoholic extract with ether and alkaloids with chloroform. Male and female ether extracts contained fatty acids, which appear male to be a good source of linolenic acid. The kind and amount of organic acids and phenolic of the two sexes were different. A large quantity of caprylic acid isoamyl ester was present only in females. 2, 6-Di-Tert-4-Methylphenol was much higher in both sexes than in the other compounds. A large number of essential oil compounds were found in the etheric extract of both sexes. The similarity of essential oil compounds between male and female plants was 32.4%. Total essential oils in female and male plants were 9.63 and 11.79 mgg-1DW. Males and females had a large number of alkaloids, but there wasn’t ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Epherodxan and phendimetrazine in both sexes, ecgonine and aminopyrimidine in the male, and ergotamine and theacrin in the female, were six important medicinal alkaloids. Both sexes of E. intermedia are rich in bioactive compounds, but there was no ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.