Review on Lipophilic and Hydrophilic Extractives in Tissues of Common Beech

Common beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is one of the most widespread and economically important tree species in Europe and, therefore, represents a potential source of high value added extractives. The aim of this paper was, therefore, to review the existing data regarding the composition of lipophilic and hydrophilic extractives of beech tissues, and the extraction systems and analytical techniques used for their examination. The lipophilic extractable fraction of beech is characterized mainly by saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, fatty alcohols and sterols while the hydrophilic extractives of beech consist of soluble sugars, i.e. monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, sugar alcohols and sugar acids, as well as of simple phenols and flavonoids. Chromatography has been recognized as the convenient and most frequently used technique for the chemical analysis of extractives. This overview showed that the information about the composition of low-molecular extractives of beech is satisfactory, but the data on oligomeric extractives are still fragmentary.