Lemongrass Oil is produced from two distinctly different botanical species of Cymbopogon. One is a native of East India where it grows wild and is now cultivated over a comparatively limited area in the western parts of India. The plant is Cymbopogon Flexuasus and only cultivated plants are used for steam distillation. The other plant, Cymbopogon Citratus, is possibly a native of Ceylon and parts of East India, but it is now found only under cultivation. Unlike C. Flexuosus, the Citratus is widely distributed all over the world and it has been given the somewhat confusing name West Indian Lemongrass. Lemongrass Oil is steam distilled from the fresh or partly dried leaves of the above grass and occasionally, it is water and steam distilled. Outside of India, the west Indian grass is distilled in Africa, Belgian Congo, Angola, Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, Guatemala, Comoro islands, etc., in Central America, in the West Indies, Haiti, Jamaica, in South America and in Formosa, Indochina, Indonesia, Malaya, etc. Lemongrass Oil is a yellow or amber somewhat viscous liquid with a very strong, fresh grassy Iemon type, herbaceous or tea like odor. The oil is often turbid when it arrives from the producers, but care should be taken that it be kept dry since it is able to keep 2 1/2 or 3% of water clearly dissolved at room temperature. This water content is definitely harmful to the citral which decomposes rapidly in the presence of water, air and daylight. The water is conveniently chilled out under stirring of the oil and it separates as a bottom liquid layer.
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