abstractflowering shoot biomass of artemisia annua var. jeevanraksha grown under the semi-arid tropical climate of hyderabad, south india, and distilled by field- and hydro-distillation techniques produced 0.26% and 0.35% essential oil yields on a fresh weight basis, respectively. gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (gc-fid) and gc/mass spectrometry (gc/ms) analyses yielded fifty-four constituents accounting for 95.8% and 92.0% of the oils in field and hydro-distillations, respectively. the major compounds of the field-distilled oil were: camphor (23.6%), -caryophyllene (16.6%), -humulene (5.4%) and germacrene d (17.0%). the principal components of the hydro-distilled oil were: 1,8-cineole (11.1%), camphor (36.6%), -caryophyllene (5.7%) and germacrene d (5.9%). aliphatic ketones (37.7%), monoterpene hydrocarbons (11.2%) and oxygenated monoterpenes (19.9%) were higher in the hydro-distilled oil. sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (54.1%) and oxygenated sesquiterpenes (6.8%) were present in large amounts in the field-distilled oil.keywords: artemisia annuaasteraceaeessential oil compositiondistillation methodcamphor1,8-cineole-caryophyllene acknowledgementsthe authors are beholden to the director, csir-central institute of medicinal and aromatic plants, lucknow, india, for facilities.