field experiments were conducted at csir-institute of himalayan bioresource technology, palampur, india, to study the performance of different varieties of rose oil species in western himalayas. five varieties of rosa damascena, namely indica, jwala, super jwala, himroz, hot himroz and one accession of rosa bourboniana were investigated for essential oil content and chemical composition. the rose oil was obtained by hydrodistillation in clevenger-type apparatus and the components in the oil were analyzed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (gc-fid) and gc-mass spectrometry (gc-ms) analysis of volatile compounds. the essential oil content of the varieties of r. damascena varied from 0.037% to 0.051% and that of r. bourboniana was 0.017%. super jwala recorded the highest oil content (0.051%). a total of 32 components were identified in the different varieties of rose oil. these components constituted 78.1-93.5% of the total rose oil species. the main components of rose oil were citronellol + nerol (16.3-30.1%), geraniol (15.8-29.3%), linalool (0.7-1.9%), rose oxide (0.9-2.6%), phenyl ethyl alcohol (0.1-0.4%), eugenol (0.3-2.2%), nonadecane (7.3-14.7%). the content of citronellol + nerol (30.1%) and geraniol (29.3%) was the highest in himroz compared with other varieties.