Plants produce a variety of chemical compounds, and plants have been the main source of new chemical entities and novel chemical scaffolds or templates, unfolding new challenges for organic synthetic chemists to explore appropriate synthetic routes for their total synthesis. Because of the unique chemical diversity offered by plants, it is often a tedious and complicated process when it comes to structure elucidation of phytochemicals. Recent advances in spectroscopic techniques, particularly in NMR and MS methodologies, have provided various tools that assist phytochemists with the structure elucidation of known or new phytochemicals.

Damask rose is one of the most important aromatic plants over the world, although mostly cultivated in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Iran. Damask rose is used as an ornamental plant in gardens and parks, but it is mainly applied for extracting essential oils (EOs) from petals and buds. Hydrolates, concretes and absolutes can also be obtained from Damask roses. These rose-based products can be used in foodstuffs, perfumery and cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. A brief review upon the chemical composition including monoterpenes, phenylpropanoids, long-chain hydrocarbons, and metabolites resulting from carotenoids’ degradation of Damask rose EOs was made. The factors like genotype, edapho-climatic, agronomical, method of extraction, and storage that determine the chemical variability of these EOs as well as the strategies for enhancing the EO yield and its quality including selection of the best variety, agronomic and micropropagation aspects, procedures for cutting roses, their storage and extraction processes were also studied. The biological properties of Damask rose EOs involving antimicrobial, antioxidant, relaxant, anti-inflammatory, insecticidal, among other properties were also reviewed. It is expected with this review that new approaches might be started in order to achieve final Damask rose oils of high quality, from diverse origins, under a sustainable way. The production of essential oils from a specific genotype of damask rose by Bulgarian and Turkish people with well-defined physico-chemical parameters must be preserved; nevertheless, the other genotypes that produce essential oils with different composition must also be kept. New applications can be found for the EOs from these genotypes.

Three polyphenolic compounds, namely 1,3,6-tri-O-galloyl-ß-D-glucopyranose (TGG) (1), methyl gallate (2) and hydroxyquinol (3) have been isolated from the aerial parts of fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum L.). The structures of the isolated compounds have been characterized on the basis of spectroscopic methods in addition to comparison with literature data. These compounds along with their methanol extract were tested to evaluate their anti-allergic activity through inhibition of ß-hexosaminidase enzyme. It was noticed that all the tested compounds and methanol extract have good inhibition for ß-hexosaminidase release without affecting the cell viability where the production of ß-hexosaminidase was decreased to about 69%, 60% and 56% by compounds (1), (2) and (3), respectively. The anti-allergic activity of fiddlewood has been reported for the first time in the present report.

A new lupane triterpene glycoside (1) was isolated from the MeOH extract of the aerial parts of Euphorbia boissierana Prokh. The structure of 1 was elucidated as 3-[(O-ß-D-fucopyranosyl-(1?2)-ß-D-glucopyranosyl)oxy] lup-20(29)-en-3ß, 28-diol. Structure elucidation was accomplished through the extensive use of 1D- and 2D NMR experiments including ¹H-¹H (COSY) and ¹H-13C (HSQC, HMBC) spectroscopy along with ESI-MS and HR-ESI-MS. This is the first report of the isolation of betulin glycoside from the genus Euphorbia.

The various organic extracts from the leaves of Leucas aspera were screened for their antibacterial, antifungal and larvicidal activities against selected bacterial, fungal strains and mosquito larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus. Antimicrobial activity was carried out using the disc-diffusion method and MIC of the extract was tested by the broth microdilution method. The results revealed that all the extracts showed antibacterial and antifungal activities against selected microbes at 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 mg/disc concentrations. The maximum zone of inhibitions were recorded in dichloromethane (DCM) leaf extract of L. aspera (Willd.) L. against S. aureus (23.4 ± 2.90 mm), E. coli (20.3 ± 1.56 mm), B. subtilis (17.1 ± 2.04 mm), P. aeruginosa (16.5 ± 1.05 mm), P. vulgaris (16.1 ± 2.56 mm) and K. pneumonia (15.1 ± 3.66 mm) at 10 mg/disc concentration. The DCM extract of L. aspera (Willd.) L. exhibited significant growth inhibition against T. viride (29.2 ± 2.00 mm), C. albicans (24.4 ± 0.80 mm), A. flavus (22.8 ± 0.36 mm) and E. floccosum (19.5 ± 2.17 mm). The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ranges between 75.5-425.5 µg/mL and 125-425 µg/mL against bacterial and fungal pathogens, respectively. In addition, DCM extracts of L. aspera (Willd.) L. showed 100% larvicidal activity against C. quinquefasciatus at 1000 ppm concentration. The biological activities could contribute to the medicinal properties of the plants, and also provide more scientific authentication of traditional medicinal plants to fight against the various infectious diseases.

Lipid and volatile compositions of Borago officinalis L. leaf were investigated. The results showed that a-linolenic acid was the major fatty acid followed by stearidonic acid. Total lipids were composed of neutral and polar lipids. Polar lipids mainly consisted of phosphatidylcholine as the major phospholipid, whereas monogalactosyldiacylglycerol was the major glycolipid. Concerning neutral lipids, they were mainly composed of triacylglycerols. The volatile composition exhibited the presence of many green note compounds such as hexanal, (E)-2-hexenal, hexanol, (Z)-3-hexenol, (E)-2-hexenol and nonanol. Borage leaf appears to be an important source of essential fatty acids, phospholipids, glycolipids and green note volatile compounds for food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and biomedical applications.