abstract in brazil, many plant species are known as lemongrass due to the citric fragrance of their volatile compounds. pectis brevipedunculata is a brazilian ornamental aromatic grass with a 'lemongrass odor'. to investigate this native brazilian plant, fresh aerial parts were subjected to hydrodistillation (hd) and solid phase microextraction (spme). the major compounds (>91.0%) separated by hd were the aldehydes neral and geranial. the chromatographic profile of volatile spme fractions showed that monoterpenes were the major components, especially -pinene and limonene. countercurrent chromatography was used for the preparative isolation of citral (780 mg, >98.7% purity) and geraniol (8 mg, 86.0% purity). in addition, neral (7 mg, 87.5% purity) and geranial (12 mg, 91.0% purity) were purified by high-speed counter-current chromatography (hsccc). this work demonstrates that p. brevipedunculata is a potential source of citral and hsccc is a useful tool for separating essential oil components with high purity and mass recovery. keywords: pectis brevipedunculata citralhigh-speed countercurrent chromatographyspmesolid phase microextractionhydrodistillation acknowledgements the authors are grateful to conselho nacional de desenvolvimento cient'ifico tecnol'ogico (cnpq) for their financial support.