Abstract: The change of essential oil which extracted by SDE method was studied by the gas chromatography (GC), GC/MS and evaluation methods during Lamei [Chimonathus praecox (L.) Link] blooming. The number and content of fragrant components of essential oil were changed during aroma releasing. Results showed 26, 37, 43, 49 aromatic components in Lamei were identified by GC/MS data during the following four stages (bud, early spread, spread, blooming). In compared with the unbloomed bud, the content of alkyl compounds raised 0.590, 7.152 and 13.820 times and the alkenes compounds raised 0.424, 1.078 and 4.286 times, the alcohol compounds raised 0.895, 3.324 and 5.091 times and the ester compounds raised 1.071, 2.182 and 15.101 times, respectively with the increase of opening of Lamei flower. The ketone compounds were appeared only during the later period of blooming. The content of ketone were increased steadily during the full blooming period and was 12.3 times higher than that in spreading flowerperiod. Organoleptic evaluation showed that the Lamei buds expressed a low aroma and with green grass taste, and the specific aroma was only appeared during the flower-spreading period. It is characteized that the intensity of aroma was increased from low to high with the increasing of the flower opening. On the basis of above experiments results, the trend of fragrant components’ content by GC and GC/MS method and the results from organoleptic evaluation method were similar.

Key words: [Chimonathus praecox(L.)Link], aroma, aroma releasing, analysis