Comparison of Chemical Constituents and Antioxidant Activity of Achillea alpina L. and Achillea wilsoniana L.

Achillea species have been widely used as herbal medicine for a time. Achillea millefolium L. has one of the broadest applications in herbal medicine because of its antioxidant activity. As congeneric subspecies of the A. millefolium L., the A. alpina L. and A. wilsoniana L. also have many medical properties. This paper explored the essential oils of these two plants by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and the differences in their antioxidant activity. The result showed that the major components of essential oil from A. wilsoniana L. were (+)-2-bornanone (8.51%), (-)-β-bisabolene (6.7%), chamazulene (6.4), neointermedeol (6.12%). And the major components of essential oil from A. alpina L. were chamazulene (6.53%), (1S)-(1)-beta-pinene (5.19%), nerolidol (3.6%), and esquisabinen (2.7%). The results indicated that A. alpina L. had the highest composition of chamazulene compared with the other two. Due to the variety of compounds in the two essential oils, their antioxidant activities were different on DPPH and ABTS assays. The antioxidant activity of A. wilsoniana L. was better than A. alpina L. but lower than the A. millefolium L.