abstract the compositions of essential oils obtained from the stem barks of two acacia species namely acacia nilotica l., and acacia albida delile., of the leguminosae family are reported. the oils obtained by hydrodistillation were analyzed for their constituents by means of gc-fid and gc/ms. of the 36 compounds of a. nilotica, menthol (34.9%) and limonene (15.3%) were the two quantitatively significant constituents. -pinene (18.6%) was the only abundant compound among the 37 constituents of a. albida oil. the results differed considerably from previous data on the oil constituents of some previously studied acacia species.