Santalum album Distribution in Sri Lanka and the Variation of Oil Content and Constituents

Abstract

Santalum album has a cultural and economic attraction mainly because of its fragrant oil produced in the heartwood. Due to this reason, the demand and value are increasing which has created a high market interest. Early studies indicated that S. album showed a highly localized distribution in Sri Lanka. However, recent studies have proven that it has a wider distribution in the country. According to the literature, sandalwood oil content and quality vary within the trees growing in the same area. Therefore, this study was designed to identify the oil content and oil quality variation in three districts of Sri Lanka, namely, Badulla, Kurunegala and Hambantota. All three districts belong to the Intermediate zone, however, with different rainfall, temperature and elevation figures. Core samples and whenever possible, cross sections were extracted from randomly selected trees in each district. Oil was extracted by hydro-distillation and the different compounds present in oil were measured by gas chromatography analysis. The results showed a large variation of oil contents present in the sampled trees. Selected oil compounds, i.e., cis-α-santalol, cis-β-santalol, epi-β-bisabalol, epi-β-santalol and t,t-farnesol showed little or no variation between the three selected districts. However, cis-t-bergamotol was high in the sampled trees of Hambantota district. Those compounds did not have significant correlations with tree parameters, geographic and topographic parameters, i.e., dbh, heath and heartwood content.