essential oils obtained from the leaves and stem bark of sterculia tragacantha (lindl.), anthocleista vogelii (planch.) and from the leaves of bryophyllum pinnatum (lam.) using hydrodistillation were analyzed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (gc-fid) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (gc-ms). the percentage yields of essential oils are: s. tragacantha leaves (0.53%), s. tragacantha stem bark (0.73%), a. vogelii leaves (0.53%), a. vogelii stem bark (0.56%) and b. pinnatum leaves (0.57%). a total of thirty-five and eleven compounds representing 91.4% and 90.3% were identified in s. tragacantha leaves and stem bark respectively. the principal constituents in the leaf essential oil of s. tragacantha are: -bisabolol (13.1%), (e)-geranylacetone (11.3%) and hexahydrofarnesylacetone (9.7%) while the stem bark had hexahydrofarnesylacetone (32.5%), viridiflorol (18.9%) and 1,8-cineole (14.79%) as dominant compounds. a. vogelii leaves and stem bark had twenty-one and eighteen compounds accounting for 96.7% and 98.2% respectively, with 1,8-cineole (24.4%) and viridiflorol (24.2%) for leaves and the stem bark; 2-pentylfuran (13.4%), nonanal (9.5%) and (e)-2-nonenal (9.4%) as the most abundant compounds while twenty-four compounds representing 93.3% were identified in b. pinatum leaves with nonanal (17.3%) and (e)-geranylacetone (13.1%) being the two most predominant compounds.