Background: Cinnamomum tamala Nees et Eberm (Lauraceae), known as Tejpat, is a handsome, evergreen, medium sized tree, up to 8 m in height found in Asia Minor, north-western Himalayas, Sikkim, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya and southern Europe. The leaves have clove like taste and pepper like odor and are used to treat anorexia, bladder disorders, dryness of the mouth, coryza, diarrhea, nausea and spermatorrhea.
Materials and Methods: Hydrodistillation of the dried leaves in a Clavenger apparatus yielded a colorless volatile oil which was dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate. The gas chromatographic analysis of the volatile oil was carried out on Shimadzu 2010 Gas Chromatograph equipped with a flame ionization detector (FID) and ULBON HR-1 fused silica capillary column (60 m x 0.25 mm x 0.25 μm). The GC–MS analysis of the volatile constituents was performed on a silicon DB-1 fused silica column directly coupled to the MS.
Results: The leaf volatile oil was characterized by high amount of aromatic components (97.4 %) including eugenol (74.4 %), isoeugenol (21.1 %), acetyl eugenol (1.2 %) and ethyl cinnamate (0.7 %). There were two monoterpene hydrocarbons, α-thujene and α-pinene, present in trace amounts. Among five sesquiterpenes (2.1 %), β-elemene (1.1 %) and β-caryophyllene (0.2 %) were the hydrocarbons. There were two sesquiterpene alcohols and one sesquiterpene oxide, all occurring in trace amounts. The oil was devoid of aliphatic constituents. The volatile oil of the leaves showed significant antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (NCTC-6571), Staphylococcus aureus (NCTC-10418) and Bacillus subtilis and antifungal effect against Aspergillus flavus, As. niger, As. fumigatus and Candida albicans.
Conclusion: The leaf volatile oil of C. tamala was characterized by a high amount of aromatic components including eugenol, isoeugenol and acetyl eugenol. It showed significant antimicrobial activity suggesting its use to control bacterial and fungal diseases.

Keywords: Cinnamomum tamala, Volatile oil, Antimicrobial.