abstract the essential oils from stems and leaves (fresh or dried, and whole or sliced) of hyptis marrubioides collected from two localities of brazilian cerrado were investigated by gc and gc/ms. caryophylla-4(14),8(15)-dien-5-ol, eudesma-4(15),7-dien-1-ol, caryophyllene oxide and -caryophyllene were the principal constituents. the results were submitted to principal component and cluster analysis which allowed three groups of oils to be distinguished with respect to sampling site and post-harvested process: cluster i (fresh leaves and fresh or dried stems from lavras site) with high percentage of caryophylla-4(14),8(15)-dien-5-ol (16.7%) and eudesma-4(15),7-dien-1-ol (12.8%); cluster ii (dried leaves and stems from tiradentes site) with epi-longipinanol (16.2%) rich oil, and cluster iii (dried leaves from lavras) containing a high content of -caryophyllene (17.4%) and -copaene (10.1%). canonical discriminant analysis showed that is possible to accurately predict 100% well-classification in the original clusters using -caryophyllene, epi-longipinanol and caryophylla-4(14),8(15)-dien-5-ol as predictor variables. the whole or sliced plant materials resulted in similar chemical composition. key word index: hyptis marrubioides lamiaceaeessential oil compositioncaryophylla-4(14),8(15)-dien-5-oleudesma-4(15),7-dien-1-ol-copaene-caryophyllene epi-longipinanolcaryophyllene oxidechemical variabilitycanonical discriminant analysis