Oil Content and Fatty Acid Composition of Camellia oleifera Seed

Taking 44 superior strains of Camellia oleifera as the research objects,this paper conducted a study of the variation regularity,of oil content and seed fatty acid composition,and the correlations between these and the main economic properties of the fruit,of those different strains from different planting regions.The results show as follows.(1) Oil content of dry seed ranges from 13.7%to 42.84%,and there are great differences between the strains;(2) The order of the correlation between dry seed oil content and the main economic properties of the fruit is oil content of dry seedoil content of fresh seedventricle number per fruitseed number per fruitsingle fruit weightfruit shape indexwater content of fresh seed;(3) Looking from 3 different planting regions,dry seed oil content decreases significantly when growing in northern regions,it increases significantly when growing in high altitude regions,and there are also some differences among the strains;(4) Fatty acid of Camellia oleifera oil is mainly composed of oleic,linoleic and palmitic acid,and there are still some differences among strains and among the same strains with different planting regions.The content of unsaturated acids ranges from 87.15% to 92.17%,the average being 89.45%,and the variation coefficient is 1.2%;the content of oleic acid ranges from77.91% to 88.88%,the average being 83.58%,and the variation coefficient is 3.1%;the content of linoleic acid ranges from2.22% to 10.36%,the average being 5.87%,and the variation coefficient is 31.7%;the content of palmitic acid ranges from 5.78% to 10.80%,the average being 7.67%,and the variation coefficient is 19.0%;(5) There are significant correlations among the contents of each component of fatty acid;an extremely negative correlation is observed between the contents of oleic and linoleic acid,and the correlation coefficient is-0.921;however,the sum of the contents of oleic and linoleic acid is relatively stable.