Lipids from the seeds of seven Fijian plant species

Abstract

Lipids have been isolated from the seeds of seven plants indigenous to Fiji. The fatty acid essential to human growth, linoleic acid, was found to be the main fatty acid in the seeds of three, namely, A. pavonina, A. moluccana, and S. taccada. Seeds of A. pavonina contained two longer-chain fatty acids, lignoceric acid (24 : 0) (30·3 mol%) and cerotic acid (26 : 0) (7·5 mol%), which were characterised by GC-MS. The seed oil of A. moluccana seems unique in that it contains high levels of the fatty acids 18 : 2 (43·8 mol%) and 18 : 3 (25·8 mol%) and was the only seed oil to contain gamma-tocopherol. The seed oil of D. vitiense was the only oil that contained delta-tocopherol. © 1993.