abstract the variation in essential oil composition of salvia verbenaca l. fruits, stems and leaves was determined by gc and gc/ms. essential oil yields were 0.003%, 0.01% and 0.06% in the leaves, stems and fruits, respectively (dwt). sixty-three components were identified in the fruit oil with -caryophyllene (23.1%), caryophyllene oxide (15.9%), camphene (6.5%), -humulene (5.6%) and viridiflorol (4.3%) as the most abundant components and sesquiterpenes hydrocarbons were the predominant class (35.1%). forty-four constituents were detected in the stem oil which was rich in oxygenated monoterpenes (26.5%). camphor (10.9%) and viridiflorol (10.3%) were found as the main constituents. in contrast to the other oils, the leaf oil was characterized by the occurrence of labdane type diterpenes (24.7%) in high amounts with epi-13-manool (13.7%) and manool (11.0%) as main compounds.