Abstract: The study was carried out to investigate the chemical composition and antimicrobial activity of the hydrodistilled essential oil from Foeniculum vulgare Mill. seeds. The chemical composition of the oil could be identified satisfactorily by GC-MS analyses as well as comparison of the Kovats retention indices(KI) of elution peaks with literature data. The essential oil of F. vulgare seeds is dominated with trans-anethole(70.78%), estragole(7.78%), fenchone(5.87%), limonene(5.85%) and δ-3-carene(2.01%). The antimicrobial test results show that this essential oil has significant broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity against all 7 food-borne pathogens and 2 spoilage fungi tested. Especially, Apergillus niger ATCC 16404 and Vibrio ahaemdyticus VPL 4-90 are most sensitive to it, the minimum inhibitory concentration(MIC) values of them are less than 0.004% and 0.015%(volume fraction), respectively.

Key words: essential oil, Foeniculum vulgare Mill., composition identification, Kovats retention indices, antimicrobial activity