Ocimene

Ocimenes are a small family of closely related monoterpenes, usually found in nature as mixtures. Their name comes from Ocimum, the basil genus, and Wikipedia notes that they occur in a variety of plants and fruits, are prized by perfumers for a sweet, herbal smell, and are thought to help plants defend themselves, including against fungi. Leafly describes ocimene as a sweet, floral terpene commonly used in perfumes.

In cannabis, ocimene is rarely dominant. In Leafly's lab data it is a secondary terpene in Durban Poison and Big Bud and appears in smaller amounts in Super Lemon Haze, Blueberry and Purple Haze; High Times lists it among Durban Poison's three dominant terpenes and describes it as sweet, green and slightly tropical.

Research on ocimene's effects is thin. A 2025 study in ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science reported that ocimene reduced pain responses and inflammation in rodent models and protected against stomach ulcers caused by an anti-inflammatory drug, but these are early animal findings with no human data.

PubChem lists beta-ocimene's boiling point at about 177 °C, with 174–175 °C given for the (E)-isomer.