Pharmacognosy with Basics of Plant Biochemistry - Kovalyov V. M. 2004

Special Part
Essential Oils

Essential Oils are multicomponent mixtures of volatile Organic compounds produced by plants that determine their aroma.

Essential oils include Hydrocarbons, alcohols, simple and complex esters, aldehydes, ketones, aliphatic and cyclic acids. Cyclic compounds are subdivided into hydrocyclic compounds, which include Terpenes and their derivatives, and Aromatic Compounds. Hydrocarbons predominate in essential oils, but the most valuable constituents are oxygen-containing compounds, especially alcohols and esters, which possess a pleasant fragrance.

The Classification of Water/23.html">Essential oils and essential oil-bearing raw Materials is based on the Chemical Structure of their main valuable components:

Class="center">



Last update: 06/08/2026

Editorial and Educational Adaptation: This material has been compiled based on the primary/original source text. The project team performed an editorial review, corrected technical inaccuracies, structured sections, and adapted the content for an educational format.

What was processed:

  • elimination of formatting defects (OCR errors, structural breaks, corrupted characters);
  • editorial organization of content;
  • standardization of terminology in accordance with academic sources;
  • verification of factual statements against the original source text.

All mentions of the author, publication year, and origin of the primary text have been preserved in accordance with the source.