The essential oils obtained by steam distillation of leaves and flowers of 49 selected Artemisia absinthium mother plants of different geographical origins which were grown in Tuscany (Carmignano, Firenze), were analyzed by GC. More than 90 compounds were found in the oils, most of which occurred only in trace amounts. Eight components, which have been reported to have antibacterial activity (α- and β-thujone, terpinen-4-ol, linalool, nerol, geraniol, α-pinene, 1,8-cineole) were identified and their percentages in each of the oils were determined. From these results, oil composition variations both within and between the accessions were found. Some genotypes were characterized by particularly high percentages of active principles.

This study provided a detailed profiling of the antioxidant and bioactive compounds occurring in three varieties of Rubus idaeus L. fruits (“Fall Gold”, “Glen Ample” and “Tulameen”) compared to Rubus occidentalis L. black raspberry (“Jewel” cultivar), adopting a comprehensive untargeted metabolomics approach developed with UHPLC analysis coupled with quadrupole/time-of-flight high resolution mass spectrometry, using the SWATH^® acquisition protocol. The feature selection and annotation workflow, applied to the analysis of raspberry extracts in both polarities, allowed identifying 68 bioactive compounds mainly belonging to the classes of (poly)phenolic compounds. Interestingly, some of these identifications (e.g., ferulic acid glycosides and the ellagitannin-like nobotanin/malabathrin) represent the first report in raspberry fruits. Principal component analysis made possible highlighting the features more related to the expression of a genotype effect within the R. idaeus species or between the two raspberry species herein investigated. Overall, flavanols were the most discriminating features for the Fall Gold variety, whereas ellagitannins and flavonol glycosides represent more distinctive metabolic traits in Glen Ample and Tulameen fruits. Moreover, R. occidentalis Jewel variety was strongly characterized by the occurrence of anthocyanins, such as cyanidin, pelargonidin and delphinidin glycosides.