abstract essential oils distilled from whole herb, leaf lamina, leaf sheath and inflorescence of palmarosa plants cultivated in south india were analyzed by gc and gc/ms. inflorescence (2.00%) and leaf lamina (1.40%) produced significantly higher oil yield than whole herb (0.75%) and leaf sheath (0.33%). palmarosa stem did not produce oil. seventeen constituents accounting for 95.6-97.1% of the oils were identified. (e)--ocimene (1.2-4.3%), linalool (0.8-2.0%), geraniol (70.1-85.3%), geranyl acetate (4.3-14.8%) and (e,z)-farnesol (1.6-3.4%) were the major components. whole herb oil was richer in linalool, -caryophyllene and (e,z)-farnesol. leaf lamina and leaf sheath oils were richer in geraniol. inflorescence oil was richer in (e)--ocimene and geranyl acetate. to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first report on the oil profiles of leaf lamina and leaf sheath of palmarosa.