Modifications over years of volatile compounds and agronomic features in a Sicilian Clary sage biotype.

Clary sage is a biennial native to Mediterranean area, spontaneous and often ubiquitous in many environments of inner Sicily. The large white-pinkish flowers are used, besides for ornamental purposes, for extracting a strongly-scented essential oil largely used by perfume industries. This work has been carried out with the aim to observe over several years the behaviour of a Sicilian Clary sage biotype, grown on experimental plots laid out in Sparacia (Cammarata - AG - Sicily). For this purpose seeds of Clary sage collected from a wild population growing in Pietraperzia (EN) were sown in experimental plots each year for seven consecutive years (from 1998 to 2005). Since Clary sage is a biennial, the observations on plants have been carried after each flowering time, i.e. after each second year from sowing. In this work the results of biometrical and chemical data collected on plants are shown. The plant has shown a strong aptitude to reflowering after each collection time, and the oil extracted from the flowers showed excellent quality characters. The oil extracted from the leaves had a composition quite different from that obtained from the flowers, being characterized by noticeable amounts of Germacrene-D. The qualitative characters of oil obtained from both flowers and leaves did not show a significant variability from year to year, and the crop seemed to react very well to the repeated cultivation for many consecutive years on the same site. This strong suitability, and the low labor cost required from its cultivation let foresee excellent perspectives for the introduction of the Clary sage in the Mediterranean cropping systems