the leaf oils of some genus of annonaceae collected from vietnam in december 2009 were analyzed by capillary gas chromatography (gc) and gc coupled with mass spectrometry (gc/ms). the major compounds identified in the oil of artabotrys pallens ast. were -gurjunene (21.9%), -phellandrene (20.1%) and bicycloelemene (9.6%). the oil of goniothalamus tamirensis pierre ex finet & gagnep. contained -selinene (12.3%), bicyclogermacrene (10.9%), caryophyllene oxide (10.4%) and bicycloelemene (5.6%) in abundance. however, -pinene (33.4%), -pinene (32.3%) and -caryophyllene (10.5%) were the most quantitative significant constituents of dasymaschalon rostratum merr. & chun. from the oil of uvaria pierrei finet & gagnep. we could identified bicycloelemene (18.3%), germacrene d (30.2%), bicyclogermacrene (26.4%) and -bisabolene (7.7%) as the major compounds, while -elemene (54.0%) was the most singly abundant constituent of uvaria dac pierre ex finet & gagnep oil. all the other compounds were identified in amount less than 5% with the most prominent ones being myrcene (3.8%) and limonene (3.8%). in addition, the oil of melodorum vietnamensis ban., had an abundance of -pinene (15.4%), bicyclogermacrene (13.9%), bicycloelemene (10.8%) and -caryophyllene (9.9%). the chemotaxonomic importance of the results was also discussed.