Myrcene

Top note

CAS# 123-35-3

Manufacturer: other

Odor description: turpentine-herbal, spicy, dry, woody nuances

Myrcene is an alkene natural hydrocarbon. It is more precisely classified as a monoterpene. Monoterpenes are dimers of isoprenoid precursors, and myrcene is the primary component of the essential oil of the South African Adenandra villosa (50%), Myrcene is also found in bay, cannabis, and hops. It is produced mainly semi-synthetically from myrcia, from which it gets its name. It is an intermediate in the production of several fragrances.

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. Many other plants contain myrcene, sometimes in substantial amounts. Some of these include cannabis, hops, Houttuynia, lemon grass, mango, Myrcia, West Indian bay tree, and cardamom.

Of the several terpenes extracted from Humulus lupulus (hops), the largest monoterpenes fraction is β-myrcene. One Swiss study of the chemical composition of the fragrance of Cannabis sativa found β-myrcene to compose between 29.4% and 65.8% of the steam-distilled essential oil for the set of fiber and drug strains tested. Additionally, myrcene is thought to be the predominant terpene found in modern cannabis cultivars within North America. Interestingly, photo-oxidation of myrcene has been shown to rearrange the molecule into a novel terpene known as "hashishene" which is named for its abundance in hashish

Myrcene also contributes a peppery and balsam aroma in beer.