Did you know that sometimes essential oils from totally different plants contain the same groups of constituents?

For example essential oils of Rose, Geranium, Palmarosa, Melissa and Tomato leaf (not commercially produced) all contain geranyl acetate, geraniol, geranial, neral, nerol and citronellol.

These represent “stops” on biosynthetic pathways each plant uses to produce its essential oil. As you can see in the illustration, geraniol is the starting molecule for all the others. How much of each constituent is produced is controlled by plant genes.