abstract the essential oils of palmarosa ( cymbopogon martinii (roxb.) wats. var. motia burk) flowering herbs from three different geographical locations in india, viz. hyderabad,lucknow and amarawati were analysed by high-resolution gc and gc -ms. in all three samples, geraniol (67.6 -83.6%) was the major constituent and, although the composition of the three oils was similar, quantitative differences in the concentration of some constituents were observed. the gc and gc -ms analysis of the hyderabad, lucknow and amarawati oils resulted in the identification of 40, 38 and 33 constituents, representing 98.5%, 99.7% and 99.8% of the oils,respectively. among the three oils analysed, amarawati oil was of the highest quality due to higher geraniol (83.6%) and lower geranyl acetate (2.3%) and geranial (1.0%) content. copyright (c) 2003 john wiley & sons, ltd.