abstract the essential oils of the aerial parts (flowers, leaves and stems) of the artemisinin rich cultivar 'jeevanraksha' and artemisinin poor ornamental type cultivar suraksha of artemisia annua, grown at new delhi, were characterized for their metabolite composition by gc and gc/ms analyses. ninety-seven compounds comprising 91.3% of the total oil of 'jeevanraksha' were identified. forty-three monoterpenes (56.6%), 32 sesquiterpenes (31.1%), and 2 diterpenes (0.2%) comprised bulk of the oil (87.9%). the oil was devoid of artemisia ketone and contained camphor (13.5%), 1,8-cineole (9.4%), trans-sabinol (7.1%), p-mentha-1(7), 5-dien-2-ol (6.3%), myrcene (4.7%), germacrene d (4.4%), (e)--farnesene (3.9%), -caryophyllene (3.7%), dihydroartemisinic lactone (3.0%) and p-cymene (2.0%) as the major constituents. eighty-six compounds representing 93.3% of the composition were identified in the suraksha oil. this oil contained artemisia ketone (47%), 1,8-cineole (8.4%), camphor (5.9%) and -pinene (5.2%) as the major components. many compounds were detected in the a. annua oil for the first time. consistent with hybrid origin of the cultivar 'jeevanraksha', its oil possessed characteristics reported earlier for the corresponding essential oils of the a. annua accessions of vietnamese origin and north-american accessions.