in this work, a novel and fast method for direct analysis of volatile compounds (davc) of medicinal plants has been developed by holding a filament from different parts of a plant in the gc injection port. the extraction and analysis of volatile components of a small amount of plant were carried out in one-step without any sample preparation. after optimization of temperature, extraction time and amount of plant, it was used for analysis of stachys inflata benth. more than thirty five volatile compounds were identified in stachys inflata benth. a good agreement was observed between the essential oil constituents determined by the proposed and hydrodistilation methods. the results indicated that the davc is simple, free of sample preparation, rapid, solvent-free, low-cost, highly efficient extraction and enrichment method.