The Bollocks Page: Books

8. Mark A. Webb (2000) Bush Sense Griffin Press, Adelaide.

p24: Under Backhousia citriodora “citral and citronellal both belong to a class of compounds called aliphatic (non-fatty) aldehydes.” This is pretty confusing: in perfumery the aliphatic aldehydes in common usage are the saturated straight chain aldehydes C6 to C13, although those in heavier usage are C8 (1-octanal) to C12 (1-dodecanal). A number of unsaturated and branched chain aldehydes are also used. Citral and citronellal are more often though of as acyclic terpinic aldehydes (in fact they are the key players in this class) as their odours are more akin to this genre, rather than aliphatic aldehydes as described above.

p25: “citral is the collective name used to describe the optical isomersic (?) aldehydes neral (alpha-citral) and geranial (beta-citral).” This is incorrect: in fact citral (3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadien-1-al) occurs as cis- and trans- isomers, not as optical isomers. Perhaps Mark was thinking of citronellal, which does occur as (+) and (-)optical isomers…

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