2017 Volume 16 Issue 3 Pages 239-248
‘Shiikuu’ (Citrus sp.) is cultivated on Kikai Island located in the Amami Islands, Japan, and the skin of its fruits has an aroma that is almost the same as that of ‘Bergamot’ (C. bergamia Risso et Piet.). A similar type of local citrus grows only in the northern part of the Amami Islands. In this study, the aroma of ‘Shiikuu’ was compared with that of ‘Bergamot’ and ‘Tanaka Bergamot’ (C. balotina Poit. et Turp.). Three major components were common in the three citrus accessions: “linalyl acetate”, “linalool”, and “d-limonene”, and they comprised 77–91% of the total in each aromatic constitution. The concentration of the phototoxic compounds, furocoumarins, was much lower in ‘Shiikuu’ than in ‘Bergamot’, despite the similarity of their aromas. Water distillation was suggested to be a suitable method for ‘Shiikuu’ essential oil extraction because of its small fruit with a thin flavedo. The results of a sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) analysis confirmed that ‘Shiikuu’ differs from ‘Bergamot’. ‘Shiikuu’ probably arose as a local Citrus accession derived from an incidentally dispersed seedling growing in the northern part of the Amami Islands.
