abstract cestrum nocturnum l. (solanaceae) is an evergreen shrub that grown in gardens for its fragrant flowers. the hydrodistillation of the fresh flowers and then the solvent extraction of the distillate yielded yellow color oil with very strong odor. the chemical composition of the oil was analyzed by gc and gc-ms. twenty five compounds, constituting 95.1 % of the oil, were identified. the major components were -phellandrene (12.1%), linalool (11.3%), -phellandrene (9.2%) and (e)--ocimene (9.1%).