abstract mature vegetative plants of artemisia roxburghiana besser var. purpurascens (jacq.) hook were collected from mussoorie (2205 m), bhatwari (1218 m) and bhaldana (850 m) from garhwal himalayas and their essential oils were isolated and subjected to gc and gc/ms analysis. the oil yield was lowest (0.2%) in the plants collected from the relatively higher altitude of mussoorie; it was rich in borneol (21.2%) followed by linalyl acetate (7.4%) and - humulene (6.7%). the oils from plants collected from the lower altitudes of bhatwari and bhaldana yielded higher percentage of oils (0.8-0.85%) which were dominated by -caryophyllene (16.3%, 18.4%) followed by -thujone (12.0%) in the former and eugenol (16.2%) in the later.