ABSTRACT
The medicinal and aromatic properties of Eucalyptus are normally associated with the steamvolatile components, and so this chapter, with the exception of the last section, is devoted to the chemistry of the essential (or volatile) oils. This then generally restricts discussion to molecules of molecular weight less than 250 amu, which are either terpenoid or aromatic in structure. The ease with which volatile oils can be analysed using gas chromatography (GC) and GC coupled techniques has meant that many investigations have been undertaken and the structures of numerous constituents elucidated. Consequently, the number of volatile compounds reported from Eucalyptus far exceeds the number of non-volatile ones. The leaves are the most frequently investigated part of the plant but interesting constituents have also been isolated from the bark and the wood.
