The first published account on the isolation of alkaloids from E. europaea L. was by Doebel and Reichstein (1). The three alkaloids obtained by them were referred to as A, B, and C. We have reported (2) the isolation of the same alkaloids and their empirical formulae. We called the alkaloid A (C34H41N016) evorine, the alkaloid B (Cs2H3+V015) evozine, and the alkaloid C (C36H43NO17) was found to be identical with evonine which was isolated from E. europaea L.
by Pailer and Libiseller (3).
Recently, Japanese authors (4,5) have reported the isolation of the alkaloid evonine from E. Sleboldiana Blume. Its PMR spectrum is identioal with that of our evonine. They assigned to It structure 1. on the basis of PMR spectroscopy, some chemical reactions and of the biogenetic relationship with the sesquiterpenoid alkaloids maytine and maytoline. The struotures of the latter two alkaloids were elucidated by Kupchan and co-workers (6). The same molecular structure of the sesquiterpenoid nucleus of evonine as that found by the Japanese authors was achieved by us independently on the basis of our PMR spectra and the mentioned biogenetio premiseso Therefore, we accept the struoture 1 as the most probable structure of evonine.
A comparison of the PWR data and the physloal constants revealed the identity of our evorine with neo-evonine whioh was also isolated from E. Sieboldiana Blume. It was assigned (7) the structure 2. The position of the free secondary hydroxyl of evorlne at C-5 was evident from the upfield shift of the 941