the hydrodistilled leaf essential oil of inula cuspidata (wall. ex dc) c.b. clarke was investigated using capillary gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (gc-fid) and gc-mass spectrometry (gc-ms). a total of fifty-two constituents, representing 83.4% of the total oil composition were identified. the oil was mainly dominated by sesquiterpenoids (78.1%) with small amounts of monoterpenoids (3.0%) and benzenoid components (2.7%). the major constituents of the essential oil were presilphiperfolan-8-ol (17.4%), ar-curcumene (17.0%), (e)--farnesene (8.2%), isoledene (6.7%), presilphiperfol-7-ene (5.5%), (e)-caryophyllene (4.1%), silphiperfol-6-ene (3.8%), silphinene (3.0%), cameroonal-7--ol (2.6%), -pinene (1.8%) and silphiperfol-5-ene (1.5%). characteristic of the i. cuspidata leaf oil was the presence of rare tricyclic sesquiterpenoids in larger amounts. to the best of our knowledge, at least forty-five constituents were identified for the first time in i. cuspidata leaf essential oil.