Basil is an important medicinal and aromatic plant. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative analyses of the essential oils obtained from an autochthon cultivar of Ocimum basilicum L. and two other Italian cultivars, O. basilicum L. cv. purple and O. basilicum L green basil with wide leaves .In the volatile oil of O. basilicum L. cv. with green wide leaves, twelve components were characterized, representing 90% of the total oil, of which linalool (45.3 %) and eugenol (42.06 %) were the major components. In the volatile oil of O. basilicum L. cv. purple, nine components were characterized representing 90% of the total oil, of which farnesene (14.94%), elemol (11.29%) and carvacrol (9%) were the major components. In the O. basilicum L. cv. (autochthon) cultivar with green narrow leaves, twelve components were characterized representing 90% of the total oil, with. Linalool (48 %) and eugenol (36.09 %) as the major components. Linalool (Raguso et. al., 1999) is the dominant constituent in the two cultivars; There was no big difference between the two green cultivars with different leaf morphology in their oil content. These results suggest that further research to improve the quality of the essential oil content is necessary.

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