the chemical composition of essential oils of sweet cicely (myrrhis odorata (l.) scop.) leaves from two geographic areas (lithuania and france) were determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (gc/ms). comparatively slight differences were observed in the chemical composition of essential oils from both selected origins. the yield of essential oil varied from 0.4+/-0.02% in lithuanian to 0.5+/-0.01% in french origin. in total twenty and twenty-six components were identified in the hydrodistilled oils of lithuanian and french origin, respectively. the essential oils of both origins were found to be rich in e-anethole (48.1+/-1.4% and 50.7+/-1.1%), methyleugenol (14.3+/-0.5% and 13.1+/-0.4%), e-nerolidol (10.2+/-0.8% and 12.0+/-0.3%) and germacrene-d (5.0+/-0.1% and 4.3+/-0.3%).