essential (volatile) oil from leaves of artemisia monosperma l. belonging to family asteraceae, and aerial parts of tamarix aphylla l. (athel) belonging to family tamaricaceae were collected from the desert of ha'il region, northern region of saudi arabia, hydro distilled by clevenger apparatus and analysed by means of gc-ms techniques. antioxidant activities of essential oils of a. monosperma and t. aphylla compared with ascorbic acid and butylated hydroxytoluene (bht) as reference antioxidant compound were determined by method of dpph radical scavenging assay and abts assay. in vitro screening of potential cytotoxicity of essential oils was also evaluated against human promyelocytic leukaemia cell lines (hl60 and nb4). the gc/ms analysis of a. monosperma essential oil resulted in identification of 61 components predominated mainly by -pinene as principal component (29.87%) and t. aphylla resulted in identification of 37 components of essential oil predominated mainly by 6,10,14- trimethyl-2-pentadecanone (21.43%) as principal component. antioxidant activity as 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (dpph) radical scavenging and 2,2 -azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (abts) increased with increasing essential oil concentrations of a. monosperma and t. aphylla (25, 50, 75, 100 and 200 g ml-1). the most pronounced increases detected in the high concentrations of the two essential oils. biologically, essential oil extracts exhibited cytotoxicity effects in dose dependent manner against human promyelocytic leukaemia cell lines (hl60 and nb4). in conclusion, a. monosperma and t. aphylla essential oils could be valuable source for cytotoxic agents with high safety and selective cytotoxicity profiles.