abstract the hydrodistilled essential oil from fresh leaves of syzygium malaccense merr. et perry. grown in nigeria has been studied by gc and gc/ms for the first time. identification of the substances was made by comparison of mass spectra and retention indices with literature records. the oil was largely composed of monoterpenes (61.1%) characterized mainly by (+)--pinene (7.3%), (-)--pinene (8.0%), p-cymene (13.5%), and -terpineol (7.5%). the sesquiterpenes constituted 30.8% of the oil with (-)--caryophyllene (9.0%) as the major component.