ABSTRACT
Pelargonium EOs obtained from different species, and having a wide spectrum of chemical compositions, have shown considerable potential as antimicrobial agents (Lis-Balchin et al., 1995); Pelargonium solvent extracts have shown a similar property (Lis-Balchin et al., 1998a), including the more hydrophylic extracts (Lis-Balchin and Deans, 1996). Commercial ‘geranium’ oil, obtained from different sources and commercial outlets, showed considerable variation in bioactivity against 25 different bacterial species, 20 different variants of Listeria monocytogenes and three fungi, which was not correlated with the chemical composition or the stated country of origin (Lis-Balchin et al., 1996a). The bioactivity against microorganisms was very potent for the main synthetic components citronellol and geraniol, but low for authentic Geranium oil, suggesting that differences in adulteration were responsible for the main differences in bioactivity. These results were also in line with former studies of commercial EOs (Lis-Balchin et al., 1998b), where differences in bioactivity between EOs, which were similarly-labelled, proved to have different bioactivities.
