Apiose, occurrence

Fifty years after the discovery of apiose, a review of the literature1 showed that it was still a curiosity, and had been found only in the parsley plant. Apart from its structure, and those of the flavonoids from which it was isolated (primarily, apiin), little else was known about apiose. In the next two decades, this branched-chain sugar was shown to have very widespread occurrence in the plant kingdom, being identified, in most of the plants investigated,4-6 by paper chromatography. 

III. Occurrence of Apiose in Nature The chemistry of D-apiose (1) and apiin (4), from which this... 

This widespread occurrence of apiose5 has not been substantiated by Beck.248 In lower plants (1 lichen, 3 mosses, 8 ferns, and 5 Gymnosperms), he detected no apiose. Beck also found no apiose in any of the plants representing families tested by Duff and Knight,5 except the Lemnaceae and Zosteraceae. It should be noted that Duff and Knight5 (also, unpublished data of Duff) did not originally find apiose in all species of any one family in which a member contained apiose, except when some species were re-examined more closely. 

Among the branched-chain sugars shown in Table I, apiose (1) and hamamelose (2), respectively found in parsley and witch hazel early in this century, are now known to have widespread occurrence in the plant... 

In recent years branched-chain sugars of comparatively rare occurrence have been isolated from natural sources as examples, apiose from the parsley plant and the leaves and fibres of Posidonia australis (p. 59), hamamelose from the tannin of witch hazel bark, and deoxy branched... 

Duff, R. B. The Occurrence of Apiose in Lemma (Duckweed) and other Angio-sperms. Biochem. J. 94, 768 (1965). 

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