abstract the essential oil from leaves of cordia leucocephala moric (boraginaceae) from northeast of brazil was obtained by hydrodistillation and subsequently analyzed by gc/ms and gc-fid. twenty-one constituents, representing 98.4% of the oil were identified. the oil was characterized by high percentages of sesquiterpenes (92.7%) with -caryophyllene (39.0%) and bicyclogermacrene (25.9%) as the main constituents. this is the first report on the chemical composition of the essential oil from c. leucocephala. key word index: cordia leucocephala boraginaceaeessential oil composition-caryophyllenebicyclogermacrene