abstract the leaf essential oil of myrica gale l. was isolated by hydrodistillation. the chemical composition of the whole oil was determined by gc and gc/ms analyses. we identified 48 components and eudesm-11-en-4-ol (11.5%), myrcene (11.3%), -caryophyllene (8.4%) and -phellandrene (7.1%) were the major compounds. many oxygenated components could not be immediately identified in this whole oil. thus, fractionation of the leaf oil of m. gale by high pressure flash chromatography yielded four fractions that were analyzed by gc and gc/ms. fraction 1 was a terpene hydrocarbon fraction, whereas fractions 2 and 3 were mainly composed of oxygenated compounds except alcohols. germacrone (46.3%) was the major constituent in fraction 2 whereas caryophyllene oxide (44.8%) and humulene epoxide ii (22.1%) were predominant in fraction 3. the fourth fraction contained exclusively alcohols with selin-11-en-4-ol (78.6%) as the major component.