abstract the essential oil composition of leaves, branches and female cones of pinus laricio poiret collected in sicily, italy, has been studied by gc and ckvms. the three oils show both qualitative and quantitative differences, especially for -pinene. the leaf oil was found to contain -pinene (53.4%), -caryophyllene (10.5%) and germacrene d (20.1%). oils from the branches contained -pinene (89.2%), and female cones contained -pinene (68.6%) and -caryophyllene (9.1%).