Cubebenes are a pair of chemical compounds, classified as
sesquiterpenes, first isolated from ''
Piper cubeba
''Piper cubeba'', cubeb or tailed pepper is a plant in genus ''Piper'', cultivated for its fruit and essential oil. It is mostly grown in Java and Sumatra, hence sometimes called Java pepper. The fruits are gathered before they are ripe, and ca ...
'' berries, known as cubebs.
The
volatile oil from the distillation of cubebs is a pale green or blue-yellow viscous liquid with a warm woody, slightly camphoraceous odor consisting of cubebene which comes in two forms, α- and β-cubebene, both with the molecular formula C
15H
24.
They differ only in the position of a
double bond which is endocyclic (part of the five-membered ring) in α-cubebene, but
exocyclic in β-cubebene.
References
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Sesquiterpenes