Since ancient times man has been captivated by scents or perfumes that include fragrances from resins, essential oils, and valuable scents obtained from flowers mainly of jasmine and rose. In the world of chemical communication animals are able to detect the terpenes and other volatiles of flower odor at great distances. The sensitivity of insects to small concentrations of volatile chemicals means that the scent of flowers is effective at very low concentrations. In this paper we present the results obtained on the chemical composition of the volatiles of the flowers of 20 plant species: Allamanda cathartica, Alpinia purpurata, Bauhinia sp, Bixa orellana, Brassavola martiana, Brassia chloroleuca, Byrsonima crysophylla, Carapa guianensis, Cassia siamea, Catharanthus roseus, Coffea arabica, Clitoria racemosa, Inga edulis, Ipomoea asarifolia, Ipomoea fistulosa, Jacaranda copaia, Petiveria alliacea, Quassia amara, Spondias mombin and Zinnia elegans. The aroma was obtained by simultaneous microextraction/hydrodistillation of the freshly collected material, and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, in a CGIEM system, equipped with a DB-5 fused silica capillary column, temperature program, 60°C-270°C (3°C/min) and helium as carrier gas. The aroma of some of these flowers consists of a component in very high concentration such as Petiveria alliacea which has benzaldehyde at a content of 55.0%, Quassia amara with hexenol at 45.0%, Ipomoea fistulosa with germacrene D at 31.4%, Allamanda cathartica with phenylacetonitrile at 39.3% and Bauhinia sp. with trans-caryophyllene at 46.4%. The other species studied presented components below 30.0%.
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