## 4 Discussion
### Overall Findings  
To test the effectiveness of the classification based on the prevalent pollen family, a PLS-DA was performed (Figure 8a-c). The model was built using 44 blossom honey samples, excluding the honeydew ones, and 38 variables (organic compounds). Melissopalynological results were excluded in order to assess the relationship between the pollen frequencies and the chemical composition of honey. The model was validated using the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) method. The cross-validated correlation coefficient (Figure 8c) indicated the best predictive ability for a three-component model (Q2, 0.45) with an accuracy of 0.75 and a correlation coefficient of 0.81 (R2). The three-dimensional score plot permitted the separation of the Ericaceae, Fagaceae, and f! 25 groups (Figure 8a), explaining, however, only 35.1% of the variance. The most relevant variables for the model (VIP! 1, variable importance in projection) were erlose, benzaldehyde, hotrienol, terpineol, octanoic acid, benzeneacetaldehyde, raffinose, fructose, linalool, kojibiose, and furfural (Figure 8b) The terpenic derivatives hotrienol, terpineol, linalool, and the sugar fructose showed higher levels in the f! 25 group. Linalool and terpineol are known to be present in many kinds of honey and are associated with a sweet fresh flowery scent [43]. Hotrienol is known to be a thermally generated product, but there are findings that support its natural occurrence  
Figure 7: Box and whisker plot of fructose (**a**), erlose (**b**), and benzaldehyde (**c**) in the honey samples. Same letters indicate statistically significant differences. in non-thermally treated honey [58]. Hotrienol could also derive from linalool [59]. The possible explanation for high fructose levels in this group was previously discussed in Section 4.6. The trisaccharides enclose and raffinose were significant for the model, being higher in the Ericaceae group than in the other blossom honeys, together with benzene acetaldehyde and octanoic acid. Benzene acetaldehyde has been identified in many kinds of honeys, including in monofloral honeys of the Ericaceae family [60], and it is known to possess a pleasant honey-like aroma [25]. Octanoic acid has already been identified in monofloral Ericaceae honey [61; 62]. Furfural was significant for the model, with high levels in the Fagaceae group, confirming what was previously observed for chestnut honey (Section 4.5). The disaccharide kojibiose was significant for the model, with high values in the Rosaceae group, together with benzaldehyde, as already discussed previously in Section 4.6. These results indicate that there is a relationship between honey botanical origin and chemical composition, highlighting the inadequacy of the employed monofloral/multifloral honey classification. This ineffectiveness is mainly due to the inhomogeneity of the pollens present among samples belonging to the same \"botanical class\", leading to different chemical compositions. Conversely, samples classified in different botanical classes showed similarity from the melissopalynological point of view and, therefore, a similar chemical pattern. The botanical classification of monofloral honeys, indeed, does not reflect the typology and abundance of the pollens contained in honeys due to the underrepresentation of some classes of pollens (e.g., acacia, apple-dandelion) and the generic multifloral classification. Particularly, multifloral honeys, based on sugars and the VOCs content, could have organoleptic properties similar to those of monofloral honeys, such as rhododendron and chestnut honeys, which commercially are much more valuable.