abstract the oil and headspace of fresh white flesh guava fruits (psidium guajava l.) from trees grown in reunion island were obtained by steam hydrodistillation and headspace solid-phase microextraction (spme), respectively. the chemical composition of the extract was investigated by gas chromatography (gc) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (gc/ms). a total of 73 compounds were identified, of which 61 by hydrodistillation and 24 by headspace spme. in the headspace, the major constituents were: hexanal (65.9%), -butyrolactone (7.6%), (e)-2-hexenal (7.4%), (e,e)-2,4-hexadienal (2.2%), (z)-3-hexenal (2.0%), (z)-2-hexenal (1.0%), (z)-3-hexenyl acetate (1.3%) and phenol (1.6%), while -caryophyllene (24.1%), nerolidol (17.3%), 3-phenylpropyl acetate (5.3%) and caryophyllene oxide (5.1%) were the major volatile constituents present in the hydrodistilled oil. many compounds were identified for the first time in the guava fruit such as -butyrolactone (7.6%) in the headspace spme and nerolidol (17.6%) in the oil. in addition some compounds such as (z)-3-hexenal, (e,e)-2,4-hexadienal, -butyrolactone, borneol, phenol, cuminyl alcohol could be identified only by the headspace method (spme).