Myrcene
aromatic chemical compound of the terpene family
Myrcene, or β-myrcene, is a monoterpene. A colorless oil, it occurs widely in essential oils. It can be obtained from Myrcia, from which it gets its name. It is an intermediate in the production of several fragrances. A less-common isomeric form, having one of the three alkene units in a different position, is α-myrcene.
Production
Myrcene is often produced commercially by the pyrolysis (400 °C) of β-pinene, which is obtained from turpentine. It is rarely obtained directly from plants.
Plants biosynthesize myrcene via geranyl pyrophosphate (GPP), which isomerizes into linalyl pyrophosphate. An elimination reaction, releasing the pyrophosphate (OPP) and a proton, completes the conversion.
Occurrence
It could in principle be extracted from any number of plants, such as verbena or wild thyme, the leaves of which contain up to 40% by weight of myrcene.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Myrcene” is aromatic chemical compound of the terpene family. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Myrcene, aromatic and chemical, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Myrcene” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.