Celery Seed Oil

This annual or biennial herb, approximately 30 to 60 cm high, is native to Europe, yet grown and consumed worldwide. The plant has a grooved, fleshy, erect stalk, taproot, both radial and stalk leaves, hermaphroditic flowers and humped seeds. It is cultivated for extractive purposes mainly in France, Holland, Hungary, India and California. The parts used are seeds and sometimes roots and leaves. Celery has a rich, long-lasting, spicy odor with a warm, burning taste.

The volatile oil is obtained by steam distillation of crushed seeds in approximately 1.5 to 2.5% yields. The seed oil has a pleasant, spicy-warm, sweet and rich “soup-like,” long-lasting and powerful, slightly fatty odor, typical of the odor of the seed, but less “fresh” than the odor of the celery plant. The flavor is equally warm and spicy, somewhat burning and very powerful. Celery seed oil has one of the most diffusive odors and one of the most penetrating flavors. The essential oil is sometimes steam-distilled from leaves and stems; however, this oil is of inferior quality. Its addition to celery seed oil lowers the specific gravity and increases the optical rotation of the latter.

Celery seed oil is obtained by steam distillation of the crushed, ripe seeds of field-grown celery, Apium graveolens L. (Apiaceae). It is produced in India in a quantity of ～20 t/yr and is an almost colorless to brownish-yellow liquid with a characteristic, pervasive, sweet–spicy, long-lasting odor. d²⁰₂₀ 0.867–0.908; n²⁰_D 1.4780–1.4880; α²⁰_D +48 ° to +78°; solubility: 1 vol in no more than 6 vol of 90% ethanol at 20 °C; saponification number: 20–70. Major mono- and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons in the oil are (+)-limonene (58–79%) and β-selinene [17066-67-01] (5–20%). Its typical, long-lasting odor is caused primarily by two lactones, 3-butylphthalide and sedanenolide (1.5–11%). Celery seed oil is used chiefly for flavoring foods, although small quantities are also used in perfumery.

From steam distillation of fruit and seed of Apium graveolens L. Yellow to green-brown liquid; aromatic odor. Sol in fixed oils, mineral oil; slightly sol in propylene glycol; insol in glycerin.

The oil is a pale-yellow to yellow-brownish liquid. It is soluble in most fixed oils with the formation of a flocculent precipitate, and in mineral oil with turbidity. It is partly soluble in propylene glycol and insoluble in glycerin.

Found in the seed of Apium graveolens L

Food additive.

Extractives and their physically modified derivatives. Apium graveolins, Umbelliferae.

By steam distillation of the crushed seeds of Apium graveolens L

The chief constituent of celery seed oil is d-limonene

Low toxicity by ingestion and skincontact. When heated to decomposition it emits acridsmoke and irritating vapors.