abstract the essential oil from the leaves, bark and fruits of bursera aromatica (burseraceae) collected from the cockpit country region of jamaica were obtained by hydrodistillation in 0.03%, 0.09% and 1.12% (w/w) yields, respectively, and were analyzed by gc-fid and gc/ms. thirty-eight constituents of the leaf oil (92.1%), 26 constituents of the bark oil (96.5%), and 27 constituents of the fruit oil (93.5%) were identified. the predominant compounds were nonane (14.7%, 5.2% and 23.7%), -copaene (15.8%, 23.7% and 14.0%), -caryophyllene (21.7%, 12.8% and 6.8%), -cadinene (11.3%, 21.5% and 4.3%) and viridiflorol (5.9%, 11.8% and 7.9%) in the oils from the leaves, bark and fruits, respectively. in addition to the components listed above, -pinene (7.0%) and limonene (8.0%) were also among the major components of the fruit oil. key word index: bursera aromatica burseraceaeessential oil compositionnonane-copaene-caryophyllene-cadineneviridiflorol