abstract the chemical composition of the oils obtained from leaves of five eugenia species, collected from different areas of southern brazil, were analyzed by gc and gc/ms. seventy-one compounds were identified in the different samples analyzed representing 81.9-93.6% of the oil contents. e. umbelliflora and e. uruguayensis oils were found to be rich in - and -pinene (24.7% and 23.5%, and 11.0% and 11.8%, respectively). in e. pluriflora, -pinene (24.0%) and 1, 8-cineole (12.7%) were the principal components. in addition, e. pluriflora oil also contained an important amount of (e)-nerolidol (24.6%). e. platysema and e. ramboi oils were characterized by being rich in sesquiterpenes hydrocarbons of the germacrane group. aromadendrane and selinane skeletons, such as allo-aromadendrene (12.6%) and -selinene (17.9%), characterized e. platysema oil, while e. ramboi oil elemane and germacrane skeletons, such as -elemene (10.6%) and bicyclogermacrene (9.7%) were the major compounds.