abstract the composition of six essential oil samples, obtained by steam distillation of twigs of spike lavender (lavandula latifolia med.) harvested in three different locations from southern spain during the full flowering and fruiting phenological stages, has been analyzed by capillary gc and gc/ms in combination with retention indices. yields of the oils during flowering (1.5-2.2%) were 2.5-7 times higher than during fruiting (0.3-0.6%). among the 56 identified constituents (accounting for 96.0-97.5% of the oils), the main and characteristic components were linalool (27.2-43.1%), 1,8-cineole (28.0-34.9%), camphor (10.8-23.2%), borneol (0.9-3.6%), -pinene (0.8-2.6%), (e)--bisabolene (0.5-2.3%), -pinene (0.6-1.9%), -caryophyllene (0.5-1.9%), -terpineol (0.8-1.6%), sabinene (0.3-0.8%), myrcene (0.3-0.8%), camphene (0.4-0.6%), terpinen-4-ol (0.3-0.5%) and limonene (0.2-0.9%). the volatile chemical composition and oil production of both full flowering and fruiting plants allowed to assess the type and quality of the spike lavender oils processed in the studied area.