Chemical composition of volatiles from <i>Opuntia littoralis</i><i>Opuntia ficus-indica</i>, and <i>Opuntia prolifera</i> growing on Catalina Island, California

<div><p>The essential oils from the cladodes of <i>Opuntia littoralis</i>, <i>Opuntia ficus-indica</i> and <i>Opuntia prolifera</i> growing wild on Santa Catalina Island, California, were obtained by hydrodistillation and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Terpenoids were the dominant class of volatiles in <i>O. littoralis</i>, with the two main components being the furanoid forms of <i>cis</i>-linalool oxide (10.8%) and <i>trans</i>-linalool oxide (8.8%). Fatty acid-derived compounds dominated the essential oil of <i>O. ficus-indica</i> with linoleic acid (22.3%), palmitic acid (12.7%), lauric acid (10.5%) and myristic acid (4.2%) as major fatty acids. <i>O. prolifera</i> oil was composed of 46.6% alkanes and the primary hydrocarbon component was heptadecane (19.2%). Sixteen compounds were common to all the three <i>Opuntia</i> species.</p>